


wanna be a painting for all to see

by Jmeelee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Anal Sex, Art, Confessions, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, Graffiti, Halloween Costumes, Happy Ending, Lacrosse, Light Angst, Locker Room, M/M, Mentions of Scott McCall - Freeform, Minor Corey Bryant/Mason Hewitt, Oral Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Swearing, Thiam Big Bang, Thiam Big Bang 2020, brief appearances of other teen wolf characters, street art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:07:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27496930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jmeelee/pseuds/Jmeelee
Summary: Outside the classroom, Theo stood chatting with Josh, hands hooked in the straps of his backpack.  The mid-morning sun cut across his face, streaking it a buttery yellow, and Liam trampled a quick, brutal fantasy where he shoved Theo out of the window he stood before.  Theo noticed Liam’s sullen stare and winked at him.  “I look forward to hearing your insights, next class!” He jeered across the crowded hallway.  “How about we partner up for the group project?” Theo laughed at his own stupid joke.“How about I punch you in the balls instead?” If Liam didn’t leave immediately, he’d regret it.As he strode down the hall, discarded gum wrappers and chip bags crushed under his heels, Liam heard Theo sarcastically say to Josh, “I love that kid.”“Doubt he feels the same,” Josh replied.Damn right.Liam didn’t go searching for trouble, but it found him anyway, and its name was Theo Raeken.Written for the Thiam Big Bang 2020
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 39
Kudos: 180
Collections: Thiam Big Bang 2020 Collection





	1. Semester 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Thiam Big Bang 2020 Prompt #5: "Theo is an artist who spends most of his time in the art classroom. One day Liam comes barging into the art classroom and Theo happens to be right in front of the door and spills paint over him. Then they start spilling paint over each other as revenge. Liam secrecy admires Theo from a distance." <\-- To the anon prompter, I hope you enjoy what I created <3 
> 
> I had an amazing time working with [Kane!](https://volsungar-the-mighty.tumblr.com/) Please give them all the love for the art they made to accompany this story. I hope our transpacific friendship can continue! 
> 
> [Janna](https://li0nh34rt.tumblr.com/) is a beta extraordinaire and expert calmer of anxieties, and I own her a million thank yous. Any remaining mistakes are mine. 
> 
> The mods of the Thiam Big Bang 2020 rock! Thanks for creating such a well-organized event.
> 
> And finally, to the NSA agent who is undoubtedly wondering why I spent so much time pursuing the floor plans and general layout of the U.C. Davis campus: I promise I was only trying to find the best spots for two boys to kiss.

Art by [Anchorsareimportant](https://anchorsareimportant.tumblr.com/) (Explicit art at the end of the story)

**August**

He didn’t search for trouble, but trouble found Liam wherever he went. Today it stalked him four blocks off the UC Davis campus as he hurried through the still-misty city streets, desperately searching for a half-decent cup of coffee. Liam, a late riser, had hoped to leave 8 AM classes where they belonged—in community college—but here he was, at 7:36 AM, bypassing two Starbucks and a Panera Bread, hoping for something local to fill the caffeine-shaped hole in his chest. Time was running short. He would have to settle for Peet’s.

Chain coffee shops had one positive thing going for them—they knew how to keep a line moving. Liam jetted in and out in eight minutes, speed walking his way back to campus when trouble took its first swing at him. 

He braved an alleyway shortcut back to the Social Sciences and Humanities building—nicknamed the _Death Star_. Most of the morning fog had dissipated, but in the shady alley, some still lingered around his new sneakers. He dodged a dark, impossibly-deep-looking puddle rippling with the seismic motions of the bustling city, so busy taking a sip of his sub-par cappuccino he didn’t notice the random litter under his feet. A small metal cylinder nearly wiped him out.

“Damnit,” Liam hissed, pulling the cup away from his mouth as liquid sloshed out of the drink-through lid. A few stray droplets splattered on his freshly-washed lacrosse sweatshirt. _Fuck_. Coach would read him the riot act at mid-afternoon practice for looking slovenly, and he had no time to make it back to his dorm room and change; he’d barely make it to class as it was. He kicked at the canister that almost felled him—a can of spray paint. _Chill out, Dunbar._ _No reason to get angry_. Liam threw his head back, blew an exasperated breath toward the sky through clenched teeth, and that’s when he saw it.

Davis was a ten-square-mile art gallery where anything and everything served as a canvas; Liam couldn’t spit without hitting a sculpture or mural. He’d lived there for three weeks and already walked under a bike tire trellis and snapped selfies with seven weird ceramic egghead sculptures around campus. A person could quickly become immune to the colorful ambiance and whimsy, the raw visual storytelling. He walked past several pieces every day and never spared them a glance; he’d almost walked past this one.

Painted on the wall to his right, a few feet above eye level, were two hands ripping open a ribcage, exposing a black, anatomically correct heart. It was beautiful; it was grotesque. It made Liam stop and stare. It made his chest ache. 

The artist had included peeled back layers of shredded skin and sinewy muscles, jagged milk-white bones cracked and splintered down the center. Dainty, almost child-like hands wrenched open the chest. Of all the insanely meticulous details, the bloated black heart caused Liam to step closer; the way blood still appeared to flow from the serrated aortas, the way it seemed to beat in time to Liam’s own, despite its apparent demise.

Paint thinner and exhaust fumes invaded his nose. If Liam were an art connoisseur, which he wasn’t, chances are he’d rattle off some bullshit about depth and linear perspective; instead, he reached out with his free hand to touch the rotting organ, craving a tactile connection. His fingers came away tacky and stained the color of tar.

The artist must have worked until dawn. 

_Shit_. That reminded Liam he was burning daylight on his tight time table. He pulled out his phone and snapped a quick picture of the street art, guzzled his too-warm coffee, and sprinted to class. 

* * *

Liam wondered, not for the first time, if his new advisor had been wise to place him in a class with seniors. Credits from community college back in Beacon Hills had transferred over, and high school AP History finally paid off—he was three credits ahead in his junior year. _Take an upper-level course_ , his advisor advised. _Challenge yourself._

So he found himself sitting in the lecture hall for Architecture, Art and Human Rights, challenged on all fronts. Liam’s paint-stained fingers flew over his laptop keyboard, taking notes. He’d studied for two hours for the first quiz of the semester and barely contributed to class discussions, until today.

“Who can tell us what these feats of architecture have in common?” The professor asked, clicking his remote like a Jeopardy contestant and making pictures flash on the projector. Pastel painted buildings on a curved road, crudely carved arches over a narrow winding street laid with pink pavers, a small paved alley leading to crystal clear water. 

_Christ, he knew something!_ Liam’s hand shot into the air like an eager kindergartner on the first day of school. Someone sitting a row behind him scoffed.

“Young man in the lacrosse sweatshirt,” the professor called. This early in the semester, the teacher didn’t know anyone’s name, and based on the size of the lecture hall, Liam doubted he ever would.

“They’re all like Mykonos,” he answered, smiling like a loon, “the Greek island. In the city, they built long, narrow winding streets converging at a specific point. Invaders would get lost in them, like a maze, and ambushed by townsfolk. I recognized Marrakesh and Montenegro in your slideshow. Many seaside cities adopted this architecture style because of the constant threat from pirates.”

“Precisely!” The professor replied, smiling as if Liam had single-handedly restored his faith in Gen Z. He launched back into his lesson, pacing back and forth at the front of the room. 

“Impressive,” someone behind him snickered. 

Liam bristled, smile dropping and anger bubbling inside him. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the medicinal smell of floor cleaner and too much body spray, before turning around, begging the irritation to settle. “What?” He eyed several guys sitting in the tiered seating behind and slightly above him, challenge dripping from his words. “I like history.”

One guy rose to the provocation, voice as deep and resonating as a sex phone operator. “Color me surprised. I wasn’t aware jocks had brain cells inside their thick skulls.” 

And trouble, waiting poised and patient, finally pounced.

Why were the attractive ones always assholes?

Liam wanted to punch the guy in the face. _Hard_. A button nose, far too cute and straight, scrunched up when he smiled an insolent smile at Liam, the apples of his cheeks begging for Liam’s fists. He’d artfully styled his dark-brown hair to look like someone had tugged their fingers through it, and scruffy facial hair framed plush lips. Bright, leaden-blue eyes the color of fading bruises completed the pretty picture. He wore a light-gray tank top with bright white edging under a partially zipped black hoodie. The hood piled at the back of his neck served to block the too-cold air conditioning, and as a makeshift pillow. He sprawled in his plastic fold-out seat like a king; white converse sneakers lounging on the chairback next to Liam.

Liam flashed his teeth. “I wasn’t aware anyone gave a shit about your opinion.”

A thin-faced, dark-haired boy wearing a Black Lightning t-shirt kicked the ankle of Liam’s attacker. “Leave him alone, Theo,” he said, never halting as he scribbled in a composition notebook. “He’s just a junior trying to prove his worth.”

Was it so obvious Liam was a year younger than these guys? Maybe the hand-raising had given him away.

“Yeah, you’re right, Josh. I get the feeling this kid’s tougher than he looks.” He flashed another insincere throw-away smile in Liam’s direction, batting long dark lashes, then pointedly gave all his attention to the teacher at the bottom of the steeply-banked room.

Liam rankled at the apparent dismissal. It had been a long time since rage boiled so hot and destructive in his veins, and he was alarmed to find the fire stoked by such a juvenile pissing match. He turned around to face the professor, but could only listen with one ear for the rest of the class, taking half-hearted notes while he tried to stem the rising flood of anger. Around him, textbook pages turned, and keyboards clacked, the other students blissfully unaware of the time bomb ticking in Liam’s chest. By the end of the two-hour lecture, his shoulders permanently resided around his ears, and his clenched jaw ached. He took his time gathering his materials, carefully sliding his laptop into his backpack before climbing the stairs to the double-door exit. 

Outside the classroom, Theo stood chatting with Josh, hands hooked in the straps of his backpack. The mid-morning sun cut across his face, streaking it a buttery yellow, and Liam trampled a quick, brutal fantasy where he shoved Theo out of the window he stood before. Theo noticed Liam’s sullen stare and winked at him. “I look forward to hearing your insights, next class!” He jeered across the crowded hallway. “How about we partner up for the group project?” Theo laughed at his own stupid joke.

“How about I punch you in the balls instead?” If Liam didn’t leave immediately, he’d regret it.

As he strode down the hall, discarded gum wrappers and chip bags crushed under his heels, Liam heard Theo sarcastically say to Josh, “I love that kid.”

“Doubt he feels the same,” Josh replied. _Damn right._

Liam didn’t go searching for trouble, but it found him anyway, and its name was Theo. 

  
  


**September**

“Ugggh,” Liam groaned, loud and obnoxious. 

“That sounded miserable,” Mason said sleepily. “Misery is illegal when the sun shines.” Liam, his best friend Mason, Mason’s boyfriend Corey, and their old stained bedsheet commandeered a prime spot on the quad. What started as people watching had devolved into Corey and Mason lazily lying back, sneaking kisses, and occasionally pointing out shapes in the puffy clouds overhead. Two years ago, Liam had gone to community college to save money, while his childhood best friend had started at University. Their original plan to dorm together derailed when Mason started dating Corey during the second semester of Freshman year, and they’d moved into an off-campus apartment. Since Liam joined UC Davis, he and Mason had been making up for the lost time, stealing any moments they could to hang out between classes, Liam’s lacrosse practices, and Mason’s extracurriculars. 

Liam followed an intense game of ultimate frisbee a few yards away, sitting tall and admiring everyone’s new fall wardrobes. The temperature had become unseasonably cold for a few days, and all thirty thousand students took advantage of the crisp breeze and warm sunshine to don cute sweaters and boots with woolen socks. One fellow student, in particular, caught Liam’s eye as he passed the crowded bike racks.

“There’s that fucking asshole. Again.” Seriously, on a campus this populated, Liam should not run into Theo at this frequency. After moving his seat in Art and Architecture, Liam prayed he’d seen the last of Theo, but the dude was _everywhere_. In the dining hall, Theo had the habit of sitting at a table right in Liam’s line of sight, always eating lean protein and vegetables while Liam chewed angrily on a slice of pepperoni pizza. He commandeered the comfiest seat in the library, next to the window and the charging port. Theo monopolized the T-bar row in the gym every morning. He was in the arboretum, the CoHo, even at the fucking farmers market. His mere existence was a constant distraction—no, not a distraction—a horrible irritation Liam had no hope of ignoring.

Liam grabbed a handful of grass and yanked it out by the roots. 

“Where’s Satan? Let me see him.” Mason scrambled to a sitting position, scanning the walkways and the benches around the manicured quad. “You’ve dissed this dude for weeks.”

“There,” Liam pointed. “In the black ski cap. And who the fuck wears a ski cap in California in September? Fucking pretentious prick. It’s not _that_ cold.”

“Says the guy wearing chamois-lined duck boots.” 

“Can you please focus on my arch enemy and not my footwear?”

“Wait…” said Mason, sliding his ray bans down his nose like he was Audrey Hepburn. “ _That’s_ your Theo?”

Liam didn’t appreciate Mason’s tone. “He’s not _mine_.” Mason ignored the indignation and biting edge to Liam’s voice.

Theo glanced around, eyes hunting over the quad like a predator looking for the weakling in the pack, found himself in Liam’s crosshairs instead. He smiled, big, bright and fake, and waved to Liam like the Queen of England. Liam flipped him off. Theo’s laughter rolled across the grass like a soccer ball, and Liam volleyed with the middle finger of his other hand.

“That’s Theo Raeken.”

Corey sat up like a shot. “Raeken? _The_ Theo Raeken?”

“What?” Liam asked, head swiveling back and forth between the two of them. “Who the hell is he?” _Other than a pain in my ass._

“He’s, like, notorious around here. Bad news. Stay far away.” Corey’s wide brown eyes implored him.

“Why? What’s wrong with him?”

“Uh, everything? Let’s see; he’s been to jail, been homeless—“ Mason started, ticking off his fingers.

“He smashed his father’s hand with a hammer,” Corey continued. 

“Really?” Mason asked. “I heard it was his step-father.”

Corey shrugged. “Our freshman year he got this nice, totally naive guy in the veterinary sciences program so drunk he passed out and almost died. That kid got kicked out of the program.”

“Oh, and there’s a rumor he killed his sister and sold her heart on the black market,” Mason finished.

“Jesus.” The last one sounded far fetched, but Liam was a hate sponge ready to soak up any juicy tidbit which painted Theo in a negative light. 

“Theo Raeken is a life ruiner, Liam,” Corey said solemnly. “He ruins lives.”

Liam peeked across the quad, but Theo vanished. _Good_ , he thought, but not knowing where Theo went made the back of Liam’s neck prickle. “Don’t worry, guys,” he said, reclining on the sheet. “I know enough to stay away.” He missed the skeptical glance between Corey and Mason.

Liam watched the clouds until his four o’clock class and let the sun sear the vision of Theo sauntering across campus in tight whitewashed jeans from his eyes. Unfortunately, that evening when he closed them, Theo was burned onto the back of his eyelids like an after image.

  
  
  


* * *

On the back steps of Olson Hall, Liam had the best cell reception and the worst view. The two-story gray concrete building sucked all the color from the landscape and the excellent wifi from Shields library next door. He’d just hung up with his mother and step-father, who’d not-so-casually reminded Liam his friend from Harvard, Dr. Dorsey, had her office nearby. “I’ll consider it,” Liam promised, saving her info into his contacts.

“We just want to make sure you have an outlet, sweetheart,” his mother said. “College can be stressful, and sometimes it’s nice to talk through your struggles with someone unbiased.” She threw out a few more platitudes about the power of therapy. Diagnosed with Intermittent Explosive Disorder in ninth grade, Liam already had five years of therapy under his belt. One of the perks of going away to college had been a break from his weekly sessions with a psychiatrist; he wanted to learn how to manage his anger on his own. 

Liam stood from the hard steps and stretched his arms overhead, spine popping. He pocketed his phone, stepping out onto the grass and rounding the side of the building, heading back toward his dorm. Erected from square ten-foot concrete slabs stacked atop each other, Olson Hall was drab and unitarian, so when the dull cement suddenly gave away to color, like a garden growing from a concrete jungle, Liam took notice.

A black Glock, standard police issue—he recognized the gun from hanging with the sheriff’s son in high school. One rugged hand wrapped tight around the grip, pointer finger caressing the trigger. Instead of a bullet, words burst forth from the barrel, splattered over a smooth achromatic block, dripping mercury-silver and dark-red like blood. _Fire at will._

Any history major who’d studied warcraft would recognize the words, and Liam—with his volatile temper and anger issues—didn’t have a particular affinity for deadly weapons. Still, the artwork struck a chord deep in his chest, vibrating through him.

Was this the same artist whose graffiti Liam encountered the month prior? He couldn’t say for sure, but the way the gun looked like he could reach out and touch solid metal had him considering they were one and the same. Something about the artwork resonated with him, the same sensation spreading like fire through his veins that had previously possessed him, made him touch the black bleeding heart. Was it his own trigger-finger anger splashed onto dried cement for the whole world (or whatever dumbass strolled around the side of the building) to see? Was it the way the words shot out of the three-dimensional gun traveling at a million miles per hour? In his seven years of therapy, Liam never felt more seen, more understood, than he did when looking at these pieces of art. And all without ever having to speak a word.

_Fire at will._ Military terminology; it meant a soldier should shoot when ready, not on a commanding officer’s order. It meant autonomy, free will, the trust placed in a person to know when the right time came if it ever came at all. It made him think of his parents, their innate belief that Liam would seek help for his IED if he needed it. It made him think of Theo Raeken, whose smug handsome face practically begged Liam to fire a shot. 

Liam’s parents trusted him to know when the right time came. If random street art loosened something in his diaphragm, allowing him to take his first deep breath in months, maybe years, perhaps the time was now. He pulled out his phone, set a reminder for the morning to call Dr. Dorsey to make an appointment, then, with one final look at the illegal artwork, set off toward his dorm.

Fire at will. 

  
  


**October**

“So, tell me again what this therapist said,” Mason demanded as they stood in front of the community announcements board. Liam held a small slip of paper tight in his fist, keeping the autumn wind from blowing it away. Someone had scribbled a phone number on the rectangular sheet.

“She told me to find an outlet for my anger, something that is the opposite of lacrosse, something that allows my mind to rest.” He waved the slip under Mason’s furrowed nose. “This is perfect! And look how much it pays.” 

“I’m pretty sure she meant yoga, not…” Mason motioned to the flyer still tacked to the corkboard, now missing one of the vertical tear-offs at the bottom. _Nude Models Wanted for Life Drawing Class_. 

“Yea, but yoga doesn’t pay twenty dollars an hour. I could afford my books or pay for beers at the bar.” 

Mason raised one eyebrow. “What if you drop your drawers, and there’s someone you know in the class?”

Liam squinted, reading the fine print. “It says this gig is for Freshman art courses. I don’t have any classes with first-year students, and there’s only a few on the lacrosse team; none of them are art majors. I’ll never see anyone I know.”

“Famous last words,” Mason mumbled. “I don’t see how getting naked in front of a bunch of _strangers_ will help your fear of intimacy.”

Liam punched him on the shoulder. “I don’t have a fear of intimacy. I have anger issues.”

“Po-tay-toe, po-tot-oh. There are so many other things you could do. I just don’t understand why you’d want to model for an art class. You don’t even like art.”

The thing was, Dr. Dorsey told him to focus on something that had brought him joy lately, and as soon as she’d said it, the graffiti he’d discovered around campus and the adjacent streets popped into his mind. A few days ago, he’d passed a creepy rendering of a cyberpunk mask atop a bare, muscular neck; the wearer’s hands smashed to the sides. Liam couldn’t tell if the wearer’s hands—knuckles bloody and bruised, fingernails chipped and ragged—were pulling the mask on, or desperately trying to tear it off. It left him unsettled in the best of ways, and he’d found himself thinking about it as he lay in bed at night, trying to decide what the artist wanted him to see. Wasn’t that the point of art? To communicate with the viewer? To inspire emotions? The raw, edgy art he’d found may not spark joy, exactly, but it made Liam _feel_. 

Liam lacked the words to explain, so he simply told Mason, “It feels right.”

“Your choice, man. Just don’t pop a random boner in front of the freshies,” Mason said, slapping him on the back. “Now come shopping with Corey and me; I’ve got my eye on this epic Halloween costume.” 

* * *

“Have you run into him yet?”

“Sydney,” Liam sighed, “for the eighth time tonight, no, I haven’t seen Deadpool.”

Sydney pouted, plastic solo cup tipping dangerously toward the already-sticky hardwood floors of the frat house. Liam cupped the drink with his red-gloved hand, narrowly avoiding disaster. “But, Spider-Man and Deadpool need to meet! It’s the ultimate team-up!”

“I promise I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” he placated. The infamous Deadpool had likely left hours ago, but when Liam had mentioned that to Sydney last time she asked, her eyes welled up with crocodile tears. Was this her fourth drink, or fifth? Since her second, she’d hounded him, not even knowing who was under the Spider-Man mask; Liam didn’t bother to inform her they shared an Economics class Monday nights. When she’d sashayed up to him as he entered the party, her tall, athletic frame filling out the Black Widow costume nicely, Liam hoped he might end the night a lucky man. Now he thought she had more interest in seeing this mysterious Deadpool score.

“Cross your heart, hope to die?” she slurred.

“Stick a katana in my eye.” That earned him a stream of giggles.

He deposited Sydney back with her sorority sisters on the makeshift dance floor in the frat living room and wiggled his empty cup at Mason, who swayed to the beat with Corey in his arms. Liam pushed through a crowd of sweaty, sparkly bodies, headed toward the kitchen at the back of the house to top-up his jungle juice.

“Refill, please.” He handed his cup to the fraternity bro guarding the plastic tub of fruity alcohol. The closed kitchen door muted the thumping bass. Fresh, cool air flowed through a cracked window over the sink, and Liam took his first second-hand pot-smoke-free breath of the evening. A trio stood at the counter, murmuring to each other. He’d have to hit the head soon; the spandex leggings caused uncomfortable wedgies.

Drink refreshed, he carefully chugged a few swallows, so he didn’t lose the whole damn thing when some drunk freshman knocked into him. He turned, the cup still between his lips, and came face to face with Deadpool.

“Oh, hey!” he said dumbly. “I found you.”

The Deadpool costume was impressive. Many of the details were hand-painted on the red jumpsuit, including black ovals around the eye holes and holsters around impressively thick thighs. Majestic swords hung off his back, and Liam would bet money they were cardboard painted to look more realistic. The ensemble was a work of art compared to the cheap knock-off Spider-Man Liam ordered from Amazon.

Deadpool cocked his head to the side. “I can’t say the same, Peter Parker, but it’s nice to meet you,” he replied. The mask muffled his deep voice. He stood with a pair of equally well-dressed people. A beautiful brunette stood on Deadpool’s right, dressed as a pirate, with artfully ripped fishnet stockings, short bloomers, a tight corset, and a kick-ass hat with a giant feather sticking out. The guy on Deadpool’s left was Beetlejuice; his face makeup eerily spot-on. The dude looked three-quarters dead and decomposing under a frazzled wig that looked like it received one hundred million volts of electricity. 

They stared at him—at least Liam thought Deadpool was staring, but he couldn’t tell what was happening under the mask—waiting for him to continue. Liam opened his mouth, about to explain. 

The kitchen door burst open, hitting the jungle juice frat boy in the back. “Oh my god!” Sydney screamed so loud Liam accidentally set off his web-shooters. Silly string landed on the sexy pirate’s left boob. “I’ve waited for this all night!”

“Waited for what?” Beetlejuice asked. 

“For Spider-Man and Deadpool to meet,” Liam explained. “She’s hounded me the whole party. They’re friends in the comic books or something.”

“Friends!?” Sydney screeched. “They have the most epic bromance of all time!”

“I’ve read those,” the Pirate girl said, picking a silly string off her chest and dropping it to the dirty linoleum floor. She smiled at Sydney. “Awesome coloring and artwork in their team-up series. I found their relationship pretty homoerotic, to be honest.” She nudged Deadpool.

“Oh yeah.” Sydney laughed, then hiccuped. “I’ve read a ton of fanfiction about them.” She turned toward Liam in slow motion. “Oh my god, that’s it! You two should totally make out.” 

“I did not sign up for this,” jungle juice frat boy complained and abandoned his post at the plastic tub.

“Kiss?” Deadpool laughed. “Are you crazy? You don't even know if either of us is—”

“Excuse you,” Sydney interrupted, shoving her palm dangerously close to Deadpool’s face. “Peter Parker is canonically bisexual. And Deadpool is pan.”

Liam could practically feel a raised eyebrow under the dark red mask. “Well, you can’t argue with logic,” Deadpool drawled.

Liam laughed. “No pressure, man, but if you don't kiss me, Sydney’s going to hound you all night.”

“Do it. Do it. Do it,” chanted Beetlejuice. Sydney joined in. Mason would have a field day with this; too bad he was in the next room.

“I’m game if you are,” Deadpool replied, twisting at the slim waist to place his drink on the kitchen counter. The move showcased impressive obliques under his clinging costume. Liam’s stomach dipped in a not-unpleasant way.

And the thing was, Liam was kind of game. Kissing boys wasn’t something he did often, but he did it, and he liked it, and he was going to do it now, in this dirty kitchen, with a stranger. He must have been out of his mind, but it felt good to let go, and he wasn’t going to question why. Liam could work it out with Dr. Dorsey at a later date. 

Deadpool reached around the back of his neck, unclasping his mask and rolling it over the bridge of his nose. Liam pulled his own spandex mask up under his eyes. He wasn’t anxious—the alcohol numbed his nerves and, apparently, his inhibitions—but his fingers trembled nonetheless. Sydney squealed in delight.

Liam stepped into the pocket of Deadpool’s trim hips and leaned forward, placing his hands on Deadpool’s shoulders for balance; the other boy’s firm muscles shifted under Liam’s palms. Soft, warm lips touched Liam’s; they tasted like fruit punch and lemonade. A few seconds of gentle pressure, then they parted, masked eyes staring at each other, unseeing, awaiting each other’s next move. Deadpool rocked his face gently against Liam’s, almost nuzzling, and Liam tipped his jaw, sliding their lips together again. Deadpool, whoever he was, shivered under Liam’s hands.

His eyes fluttered closed as Deadpool’s gloves framed his face, holding him still as if he’d dare go anywhere. _Jesus_. Their lips fit perfectly together. A shower of light and color played against the backs of Liam’s eyelids. Maybe kissing was the one form of art Liam could genuinely appreciate, and this guy was a master. 

Liam pulled back a scant inch, teasing, coy, and Deadpool chased him, caught him with his skillful mouth and hands, his artful tongue. Liam dipped his head, playing with the pressure of his lips, and Deadpool followed, giving as good as he got. Their breathing turned muted, and they twisted into each other a bit more, slick mouths falling open one tiny increment at a time.

A low wolf whistle sounded to their left, and from their right came an amused, “Damn. Get it, Theo.”

Deadpool’s head slanted a little further, Liam’s tongue pressed a little harder, and—

Wait. _Theo_?!

Liam pulled back, dazed, his brain scrambling to catch up. Deadpool’s kiss-bruised mouth hung open, his lips wet and as red as his costume. Liam slid his fingers into the soft dark hairs exposed at the back of Deadpool’s neck, slipped his hands under the mask, and yanked it off Deadpool’s head.

Theo Raeken stood before him, looking debauched.

“Fuck.” Liam backed away in a hurry. He backed right into Sydney, stepping on her foot. She stamped on him in retaliation, and black stiletto heels hurt like hell. “Fuck,” he exclaimed again.

“What’s going on?” Sexy pirate asked. She turned to Theo. “Did you bite him or something?”

Liam ripped off his own mask, breath coming fast and hard. 

Beetlejuice’s kohl-lined eyes lit up with recognition. “It’s history class guy!”

The sexy pirate looked stunned. “Wait, _this_ is history class guy?”

“Josh, Tracey,” Theo hissed. “Leave it alone.”

“But—”

“Did you know it was me?” Liam exploded. “Was this some kind of joke?”

“What?” Theo’s eyes widened, but Liam couldn’t tear his gaze away from Theo’s swollen mouth. “No! May I remind you whose idea this was? Because it sure as hell wasn't mine.”

“It was mine!” Sydney chirped. “And kind of yours,” she said to Liam. 

“If I’d known it was _him_ —” Liam spewed the word like venom—“I wouldn’t have come within ten feet, let alone kissed him.”

Theo stiffened. “I don’t know what your fucking problem—” 

“You. You’re my problem,” Liam cut him off. 

Theo threw his hands in the air. “You’ve barely said five words to me, but you’ve decided I’m some kind of monster. Quit projecting your issues onto me.”

That last line hit a little too close to home, left him panting, chest swelling, nostrils flaring, trying desperately to drag the red mist from his eyes. “This never happened.” Liam tore his gaze away from Theo’s mouth to stare daggers at the rest of the room’s stunned occupants. “Got it?” 

Jungle juice frat boy was back—Liam had been so busy sucking face he hadn't heard him re-enter the kitchen—and he held his hands in front of him like Liam pointed a smoking gun. _Fire at will._ “Dude, I’m just pouring drinks,” he said. “Leave me out of it.”

Liam turned and stomped through the kitchen door like a temper-tantrum-having three-year-old. He marched over to Corey and Mason, still dancing in the living room. The dance floor had started to thin out, several couples hooking up in shadowy corners and on any available horizontal surface. “I’m out,” Liam said, voice slightly crazed, smacking a hand onto Mason’s sweaty shoulder and squeezing quickly before letting go.

“Wait, Liam! Where are you going?” Mason called at Liam’s retreating form.

“Home!” 

“What? Why?”

“Because I just kissed my sworn enemy! That’s why.”

Before he crossed the threshold of the frat house, he heard Corey say, “It could just be me, but it’s starting to feel like we’re living in a romantic comedy.”

_More like a horror movie_ , Liam thought. 

**November**

“Have you heard if Theo Raeken takes steroids?” Liam asked, apropos of nothing. 

“I heard he does drugs,” Mason replied, scrubbing a stainless steel pot with a Brillo pad. Liam wondered if he should be alarmed at how not-surprised Mason was to talk about Theo. Again.

He rinsed the pot under the faucet and handed it over to Corey, who dried while following up Mason’s statement. “Totally. I’ve seen him downing pills while he’s on campus.”

“Everyone and their mom’s popping oxy these days. I bet that’s what he uses.”

“Oxy’s kinda expensive. Doesn’t he live in his truck or something? How’s he afford that?”

Liam sat at the cramped kitchen table, listening to the gossip. Since Liam cooked dinner—“Boxed Mac & Cheese and microwave broccoli don’t count as cooking, Liam,” Corey has admonished. “Just order us a damn pizza next time,”—Mason and Corey took on dish duty. Liam used his index finger to pop a stray soap bubble, the fruit of Mason’s labor divesting the pot of burnt-on faux-cheese sauce. “Probably steroids,” Liam chimed in. “I ran into him at the gym the other day. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. The dude is seriously shredded. He probably has roid rage and tiny testicles.” He’d given Theo Raeken’s testicles far too much thought.

Shirtless Theo had been doing cable pulldowns when Liam came across him, and Liam’s mouth dropped open at the sight of chiseled lats and deltoids. Liam could put in a thousand hours at the gym and still not have Theo’s bulk and definition. Theo caught Liam staring at him in the full-length mirror and leered, adding insult to injury. “Take a picture. It will last longer.” 

“Make me,” Liam shot back. 

“I think you’d enjoy that too much.” The word conjured the feeling of Theo’s mouth, his tongue, licking and sucking at Liam’s. Heat crept around the back of Liam’s neck and stole over his cheeks. Theo smiled knowingly.

He slipped on a loose tank top shortly after, but not before Liam got a glimpse of a faded scar in the middle of Theo’s chest. Liam went extra hard on the punching bag that morning, his knuckles taking the brunt of Liam’s curiosity about the scar, his inability to forget their kiss, and his misplaced appreciation of Theo’s drool-worthy body.

Corey and Mason dropped their dishes, shared a heated look between them, and turned toward Liam. “That fucker laid a thirst trap for you.”

“Did you make out with him again?” Corey asked.

Liam bristled. “We never made out. We accidentally kissed at a party. Big difference.”

“You made out. With tongues. A frat boy told everyone.”

Liam smacked an open palm onto the tabletop, rattling his water glass. “God damn that jungle juice guy!”

“You know, Liam,” Mason used his kid-glove voice, the one he adopted when something he was about to say might set Liam off. Liam _hated_ that voice. “I haven’t seen you so worked up over someone since—”

“Don’t say her name,” Liam snapped. “This is completely different.” Even now, after all these years, his heart still seized painfully in his chest.

“I’m just saying, you and Hayden got off on the wrong foot too.”

Liam sputtered. “I said, don’t say her name! And I’m not getting off anywhere or on anything with Theo-fucking-Raeken. Why are you even insinuating that? You both think he’s trash.”

“We do,” Corey agreed, “he’s total trash. But that would be nothing if you really liked him.” 

“I don’t like him. I hate him. I seriously have no idea why you think I do.”

“You talk about him an awful lot.” Corey grimaced as he delivered the blow. “Like, every week, before and after the class you share—”

“Well, yeah! I’m pissed I have to go see him, and pissed after because I had to listen to his stupid, annoying voice in lecture.”

“Then, last week, you almost had an aneurysm because he was in the frozen yogurt line, and you wanted frozen yogurt.”

The flavor had been pistachio. Liam loved pistachio.

“And you turned around to yell at those two girls walking behind us talking about how cute he is.”

“I didn’t want his name mentioned in my vicinity. And they were wrong; he’s not hot.” Mason and Corey leveled identical bitch-please stares at him. “Fine, he’s decent-looking.” Mason rolled his eyes. “But true friends don’t let each other like assholes.”

“Corey, can I have a few minutes with Liam? Alone?” Mason asked. 

Corey dropped a kiss on his boyfriend’s lips and grabbed his phone, keys, and messenger bag off the Formica counter. “I’ll head over to the library and get started on my Poli Sci paper. See you tonight.” 

Mason waited until they heard the apartment door shut before he shook his head and said, “That is blatantly untrue. You let me hook up with Brett in high school, and he was a total dick to you. Remember the time he hit you with all the lacrosse balls?” Liam grumbled. “Then, there was Lucas, who cheated on his boyfriend with me.”

“This says more about _you_ than it does about _me_.”

“Not really. You didn't approve of those guys for a good reason, but you didn’t stand in my way when I told you I liked them and wanted to give them a shot despite their shitty reputations.” Mason gestured toward the door Corey exited. “ _We_ can think Theo is a dumpster fire on legs, but if you like him...”

“Neither of those dudes went to jail, though,” Liam retorted, ignoring Mason’s last words. “Or almost killed another student, or sold human organs on the dark web, or took steroids. Well, maybe Brett, he was pretty ripped, but definitely not Lucas.”

“I’m not saying the rumors aren’t legit, but until you ask Theo, they’re just that—rumors. You seem to run into him a lot, whether that's accidental or not. You said he accused you of projecting your issues on him, right? I disagree with Theo, but you are definitely dealing with something when it comes to him, and you’re not dealing well.”

Liam sighed. “That sounds like you agree with Theo.”

“Yeah,” Mason said sheepishly, “but I thought I’d soften the blow a bit.” Mason grabbed Liam’s shoulder and squeezed. “I just want you to be happy, man. I know you don’t want to talk about Hayden, but she was your last serious relationship, and that was years ago. I’ve watched you self-sabotage a few good things because you didn’t want to go through what you did with her again. Going away to college is a fresh start; you should make the best of it.”

Liam patted Mason’s hand. “I hear you, and I am trying to make a fresh start. But getting involved with Theo, even as civil acquaintances, is a bad idea. Trust me; I hate him.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

“Why what?”

“Why do you hate him? What’s the reason.”

It hurt to take a shallow breath; it hurt to take a deeper one. Liam didn’t exactly know why he hated Theo, but he knew he didn’t want to examine it too closely. 

“You and Corey said it back in September; he’s trouble. The semester only has a few weeks left. I’m staying away, and if I’m lucky, come January, I’ll never see Theo Raeken again.”

Mason laughed. “You, my friend, have terrible luck.” 

* * *

Liam fiddled with the radio, plugging in his phone and loading his playlist. “Traffic is gonna be a bear,” Mason complained when they hit another red light on their way out of town. “My father better not eat all the stuffing before I get home.”

“Relax,” Liam laughed. “We’ll be there in a couple of hours. Plenty of time for dinner. And if traffic makes you crazy, I can drive.”

Mason saluted and started singing along to the first song on Liam’s playlist. Liam kicked off his sneakers, leaving them in the footwell and resting his feet on the dashboard. He reclined his seat, settling in and lolling his head against the headrest.

“Holy shit, stop the car!”

“What?” Mason yelled. He’d accelerated through the intersection but slammed on the brakes at Liam’s outburst. “What’s wrong?”

“Pull over,” Liam commanded.

“There’s no place to park,” Mason cried, veering onto the shoulder and throwing on his flashers. Liam swung open the passenger side door as soon as Mason rolled the car to a stop, stepping into the gutter in his socks. There, above them on the underside of the overpass, was artwork.

It started at ground level, a forearm reaching into the sky, painted around a circular steel pile supporting the elevated roadway. The hand splayed flat against the bottom of the overpass; detailed fingers spread wide as if they alone bore the entire interchange’s weight. A jagged piece of a broken bone, stark white against the dingy highway, pierced the wrist’s skin. Next to the snapped bone, written in lowercase letters, was the word, _inadequate_. 

Mason opened his door enough to squeeze his body out and stare incredulously at Liam over the roof. “Did you seriously make us stop to look at graffiti? Are you still drunk from last night?”

“No, I…” Liam took out his phone, snapped a picture. “I know this artist.”

“Who is it?”

Liam’s shivered. “Well… I don’t _actually_ know. But I _know_.”

Mason’s eyebrows questioned Liam’s sanity.

A black sedan swerved around them, honking repeatedly and flipping them off. “Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, cocksucker!!” Liam screamed.

“Liam, get in the damn car. If I get run over before eating pumpkin pie, I will come back as a ghost and haunt your white ass.”

They scrambled in, refastening their seatbelts. Mason signaled, then swerved out into traffic on wheels squealing like dying pigs. “Have you completely lost your mind?” He yelled.

“Possibly.”

Once they’d safely merged, Mason’s whole body collapsed in his seat, like a balloon losing air. “So, you know this vandal, or not?”

“Not. But I’m familiar with their other work.”

“Risking becoming roadkill is a pretty strong reaction for a casual fan.”

He didn’t know how to explain to Mason that the artwork gave _Liam_ a pretty strong reaction. Somedays, Liam’s anger, grisly and broken, felt like the only thing keeping the world from crushing him like a bug. Seeing a physical manifestation of his deepest fears and desires was heady and addictive.

“I’m sorry for making you pull over in holiday traffic. If I promise to bring you my mom’s leftover sweet potato casserole, will you forgive me?”

Mason squinted. “She put those tiny marshmallows on top?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Forgiven.”

  
  


**December**

Liam didn’t miss Beacon Hills while at UC-Davis, but he did miss the coffee from Cafe Luna. The student center served sludge, Peet’s was subpar, and Starbucks off campus didn’t tickle his taste buds. He’d barely managed to survive four months on the Keurig K15 in his dorm room. The intense aroma of freshly ground beans hitting him as soon as he swung open the coffee shop door threatened to bring him to his knees.

His fourth visit in the less than two weeks he’d been home for Winter break proved the other thirty thousand Beacon Hills residents shared his undying love of the indy java bar. The line stretched to the door, tired-eyed baristas barking out order after order like drill sergeants. Patrons filled every seat, chatter drowning out the music drifting like snowflakes from the ceiling speakers. People hovered around tables like vultures over a battlefield, waiting to swoop in as soon as a table vacated.

Liam took his time pursuing the chalkboard menu hung on the wall behind the counter. Mason was a creature of habit and always ordered the same nitro cold brew whenever he came, but Liam preferred branching out. Liam left with a cappuccino on his first visit, a New Orleans style iced coffee on his second, and a masala chai on his third. Today was shaping up to be a ristretto day, and when he finally made it to the register, Liam added two Nutella muffins to his order–one for him and one for his mother. “To go,” he told the cashier.

Retreating to his bed and video games sounded infinitely better than fighting for a spot to sit. 

Liam found the fixing station propped against a wall painted a deep shade of red, off to the side of the pick-up window. He shoved a few sugar packets into his coat pocket, popping a thin wooden stirrer in his teeth like a cowboy with a blade of wheat. Between the whirl of the frappuccino blender, the burr of the coffee grinder, and the obnoxious laugh of a lady sitting in a nearby booth, Liam almost missed them calling out his order. “Large hot ristretto," the barista cried, placing a tall white coffee cup with a brown sleeve on the counter. _That was quick_ , he thought gratefully. 

He blindly groped for the cup, reaching with the hand that wasn’t snatching some napkins for when he inevitably hit a pothole and spilled coffee all over the SUV, when—

"Oops, sorry," he mumbled as his knuckles collided with someone else's hand.

"No prob," a deep voice said, then Liam’s cup disappeared.

What fresh hell was this?

"Uh." His pre-caffeinated brain took a moment to fathom the fact that someone else was pilfering his order. Coffee stealing was an act of war. His eyes jumped from the retreating cup, up the (surprisingly muscular) arm and shoulder. "Sorry, but I think you grabbed—" Liam’s mouth fell open in shock, the stirrer tumbling to the floor.

"Large ristretto?” said Theo Raeken, self-satisfied sneer painted across his mouth. “Sorry, this one is mine." 

The pretentious ski cap was back, perched atop Theo’s dumb head. He’d forgone a jacket, though the weather called for one, wearing a soft, faded navy sweatshirt, the UC Davis logo splashed across the front in white and gold. It brought out the color of Theo’s blue eyes.

“Why are you in my hometown, in my coffee shop, stealing my coffee?” Liam didn’t screech the words. He lobbed them like grenades. “Are you fucking stalking me?”

Theo scoffed, bringing the ristretto—Liam’s drink!—to his smirking mouth and taking a large gulp. “I grew up in Beacon Hills,” Theo said, once he’d licked a stray droplet of coffee from his bottom lip. The story could be true. Liam had gone to Devenford Prep. Maybe Theo had attended Beacon Hills High School. “I’m here visiting some old acquaintances. And I wasn’t aware they’d changed the name of this place to Cafe Numbnuts while I was gone. Piss off; this drink is mine.”

Liam started after him as he turned to walk away, snagging the sleeve of Theo’s sweatshirt, digging his heels in, and firmly declaring, "Actually, no. That's my drink. I ordered a large hot ristretto, and you need to give it back."

Theo took another deliberate sip, and a distinct surge of irritation prickled the back of Liam’s neck. His adrenaline spiked into high gear, and he found himself analyzing Theo’s height and frame, trying to decide if he could get away with punching him next to a table of middle-aged ladies having a book club meeting. 

It worsened when Theo laughed like Liam was the punchline to Theo’s favorite joke. Like Theo had _won_. “I ordered before you, dumbass. I paid before you.”

Liam’s fists clenched, his shoulder hunched, his nostrils flared. He took a step closer, placing himself firmly in Theo’s personal space. This close, he could smell the soap Theo used. It smelled good. Theo’s eyes slipped over his shoulder, and his condescending smile grew. 

“Large ristretto and two Nutella muffins!” 

Oh, shit.

Liam turned back to the pick-up window, where a tiny barista stood holding a bulging paper bag and an identical cup to the one in Theo’s hand. She jiggled both in Liam’s direction. “Is this your order, sir?”

Liam stared at her, slack-jawed.

“It’s his order,” Theo answered, reaching past Liam to tuck a crisp five-dollar bill into the tip jar on the counter. The barista’s heart eyes were unmistakable; Liam wanted to scream at the sight. Theo smacked his empty hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Honest mistake, no need to apologize to me.”

He walked toward the exit; Liam watched him go, still speechless. Before he pushed through the door, Theo turned around to fire at Liam one more time. “Don’t choke on those muffins.”

Headshot. _Boom_.

Aw, hell no. _Fire at will_.

Liam burst through the cafe doors, scattering a flock of hooting pigeons pecking crumbs from the sidewalk, hot coffee sloshing over his bare hand. The pain didn’t register. “Come back here, asshole!” 

Theo glanced over his shoulder as a bus whooshed past, spewing exhaust. “What’s your problem now?”

Theo Raeken had a death wish. “ _You_ are my problem.”

Theo turned around, walking backward as he faced Liam. “Yeah, you’ve said that before, which is funny because you don’t even know me. Somehow I don’t think we’re going to hug this out, so take your muffins and scram.” Business people in suits with cell phones glued to their heads parted like the sea around him. 

He couldn’t stop himself from rising to Theo’s goading. Liam could never stop himself, and Theo’s attention gave him a fucked up adrenaline rush, a high better than drugs. It was almost better than street art. “It’s not funny. _You’re_ not funny. You don’t get to talk to me like that because you’re a piece of shit and everyone knows it.”

Theo scoffed. “They do, do they?” The words dripped acid. “I think the things people don’t know could fill this entire town three times over. I’m a realist. I’m a survivor. If that makes me a bad guy, makes people like you hate me, I’m okay with that.” He paused, cocked his head, and assessed Liam. “Are you one of Scott McCall’s guard dogs, or something? Is that why you’re foaming at the mouth?”

Liam was taken aback at the turn in the conversation and stumbled over a broken piece of sidewalk. “Who the fuck is Scott McCall?”

Theo rolled his eyes. “Fine. Look, I haven’t done shit to you, so whatever your problem is, you need to figure it out before you completely lose it.” He turned away. 

“Who’s Scott, huh? Is he the kid you left for dead? Is he the person who tried to carve out your rotten heart?”

Theo finally stopped walking but didn’t turn back, speaking into the cold, gray air in front of him. “Is that what you think happened?” His tone was a danger sign. Liam blew past it at ninety miles an hour.

“I’ve seen that scar running down your chest. I think whatever happened to you, you deserved it.”

Shame killed the rest of Liam’s words, strangled them with a garrote when Theo whirled around to face him. For months he and Theo balanced on a knife’s edge, Liam always knowing if he pushed too hard, the cost could be catastrophic. It came due now: a soft, pained intake of breath, Theo’s face folding like a box top, sealing away everything delicate and breakable safely inside. Liam reached toward Theo like he could grab the words out of the air and cram them back down his parched throat. “I didn’t—” 

It was too late. Theo transformed into a junkyard dog ready to lash out, even at a kind hand. He crowded into Liam’s personal space until they almost touched, static crackling between them. “Congratulations. You got one thing right.” Tears threatened the corners of his eyes. His lips curled into a snarl. Ropy veins and prominent bones stood out in sharp relief against the backs of his clenched fists. 

The honking horns, the beep of the crosswalk, the squealing brakes all faded away to nothing. Theo leaned his face down, close to Liam’s, tipped up his chin. _People on the street must_ _think_ _we’re about to k_ is _s_ , Liam thought crazily. Chances were more likely Liam was about to die, but he didn’t flee. He couldn’t. Theo’s icy-blue eyes froze him to the spot. “Leave. Me. Alone.” He breathed the command into Liam’s shock-parted mouth. 

When Theo stepped back, the spell broke like a wave. Liam stumbled forward into a wad of gum; Theo backed up again. “Leave me alone,” he repeated. “Please.”

Liam watched Theo walk away, watched him kick a peeling red fire hydrant with his heavy black boots, watched his hunched shoulders disappear around the corner. Liam stood rooted to the spot for a long time. His drink turned to ash in his mouth; he tossed it in the trash.

He’d been ready to fire; he hadn’t been prepared for the consequences.


	2. Semester 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains explicit art at the end.

**January**

“I’ve made a few New Year’s resolutions.” Liam set his corner of the mini fridge down with a thunk. 

Mason lowered his side with a little more finesse and a lot more grumbling. “If one of them is to get buff enough to sneak an unsanctioned appliance up three flights of stairs by yourself, I support you wholeheartedly.” He patted the top of the fridge. “Don’t let your RA catch you with this. I don’t want to haul it back out until May.”

Liam threw open his curtains and cracked the window, letting fresh, cold January air chase away the stuffiness of the closed up dorm room. Despite the stale smell and fine layer of dust on top of his dresser, it felt good to be back on campus.

“What are your resolutions?” Mason flopped onto Liam’s bare mattress, throwing an arm behind his head as he watched Liam refill his closet and dresser drawers.

“Drink less beer.”

Mason pointedly eyed Liam’s illegal refrigerator, designed to fit one hundred twenty aluminum cans. “My guess is that one won’t last long.” 

“Call home more often this semester.” Liam dug around behind his desk for the power strip and plugged in his laptop. 

“Your mom will appreciate that. Any others?”

Liam hung his new cork board on the wall behind his desk, and pawed through his backpack for the envelope of photographs he’d developed while he was home for winter break. “I’m going to find Theo Raeken, and I’m going to apologize to him.”

Mason was quiet for a few seconds, watching Liam pin photos of this found street art onto the board with brass thumb tacks. “Thirty-five percent of resolutions fail because the goal is unrealistic.” 

“I’m not going to be a statistic.” 

Mason rolled off the mattress, grabbed Liam’s fitted sheets and started making the bed. “Based on what you told me, I think there’s a very real possibility he might not accept your apology. Are you going to be okay with that?”

_Are you going to get angry?_

Liam stepped back, surveying his colorful corkboard collage but seeing Theo’s livid face instead. “I went too far. I don’t want to leave things the way they are now. I have to try.” He’d played the whole encounter on an endless loop in his mind, analyzing every detail, letting it keep him awake at night, wishing desperately to go back to being on the receiving end of Theo’s snarky smiles instead. Maybe Liam had been too quick to anger. Maybe, like the often-misunderstood street art decorating his dorm room wall, he’d been interpreting Theo wrong this whole time.

Liam squared his shoulders. “No matter what happens, I’m apologizing to Theo the next time I run into him.”

“Want to know my New Year’s resolution?” Mason pulled Liam’s PS4 out of a duffle bag. “Beating you in Tekken 7.”

Liam laughed. “What were you saying about setting unrealistic goals for yourself?”

His newly fluffed pillow hit him directly in the forehead.

****

* * *

Ms. Flemming didn’t look like his mother or sound like his mother. Still, for some inexplicable reason—which Dr. Dorsey would likely have a field day exploring—whenever he saw her, Liam remembered Jenna Geyer-nee-Dunbar reading him bedtime stories. The opening lines of one particular favorite childhood story sprung to mind as Ms. Flemming walked him down the hallway, her low boot heels echoing off the marble tiles. _Once there_ _was_ _a little boy. It_ _was_ _time to go to sleep, but he_ _was_ _not sleepy. Well, may_ be _he_ _was_ _just_ _a tiny bit sleepy._

Liam wasn’t nervous. Well, maybe he was a tiny bit nervous.

“Here’s your robe,” the professor said as they neared the classroom on the third floor of the Art building. She handed over a thick terry-cloth robe smelling faintly of Clorox. “You’ll change in this nook, put it on, then come in and undress. Same procedure as always.”

“Uh, sure. Right, okay.” His dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Ms. Flemming gave Liam the hairy eyeball. “Are you still comfortable stepping in to model for this class, Mr. Dunbar?” she asked, watching as he rolled the robe into a lopsided-ball, unrolled it, and rolled it back up again, twisting the delicate loops of fiber between his fingers. 

Liam nodded. “Yeah, totally.” Stage fright sunk its claws deep into his guts. 

He glanced through the ajar door of the classroom, where students prepared their materials. Wooden easels and portfolio bags scraped along the floor. The thick, crisp sound of flipping sketchbook pages floated through the air into the cavernous hallway. He’d never worked in this classroom before, always sticking to the more spacious rooms on the second floor where the freshmen studied. The tiny, intimate setting of the studio made sweat bead along the back of Liam’s neck. A small elevated platform sat in the center of the room, easels erected around it in staggered circles so the students could better view the models. Liam told himself, _it’s the newness of the place_ , gently dislodging the claws one by one with even breaths, _fear of the unknown_. 

“These are my seniors,” she reminded him, voice dropping into an even, soothing tone. “The vibe will be a bit different during this session than when you model for the freshmen. I’ve known these students for four years, some longer. They know how to welcome fresh meat.” She winked at him.

“Okay,” he said again. The scratch of pencils and woosh of bristles were the melody that relaxed him, pulled him out of his own head, and made room for things other than anger. Dr. Dorsey had known what she was talking about when she suggested seeking out an experience opposite of lacrosse. For better or worse, Liam wasn’t a quitter, so he wouldn’t allow nerves to deter him now.

The professor smiled gently. “Thank you again for stepping in on such short notice, Liam. It’s hard to find models available this early in the semester, so I appreciate your flexibility.” She nudged him toward the curtained alcove and stepped through the classroom door, pulling it almost-closed behind her to grant Liam another modicum of privacy. 

He chewed his bottom lip while pulling off his sweater and jeans, stopping himself only to bite it again ten seconds later. He usually left his discarded clothes in a messy pile in the corner, but tonight he took the time to fold each article of clothing, even his boxers, and rolled his socks, placing them inside one of his hightop Vans. He almost forgot to throw the robe on before he crossed the hallway, snapping the curtain back at the last second and sinking his arms into the soft cotton. Liam kept meaning to bring his shower flip-flops with him to modeling sessions to avoid the always-surreal sensation of walking barefoot in a school. He tugged the robe around him, then walked into the classroom, pushing open the old wooden door, holding his breath, and keeping his eyes fixed to the paint-speckled porcelain floor.

Liam barely registered Theo Raeken before a proverbial rainbow christened them both.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” they cried in unison, each dripping watercolors all down the front of themselves. Theo’s cool gray-blue eyes were wide, startled, upended pan of paints hanging from his stained fingertips. The sound of running faucets and brushes hitting easel trays ceased at their outburst. Someone at the back of the room stifled a laugh. 

When Liam vowed to apologize to Theo the next time he ran into him, he hadn’t meant it _literally_.

“Did you do that on purpose?” Liam hissed, hunching his shoulders and pulling the soggy robe away from his chest. _Shit shit shit._ He was supposed to say he was sorry not start another fight. 

Theo blinked. “What? You came barging through the door with your stupid hair hanging in your stupid face and ran straight into me!”

“Gentlemen?” Ms. Flemming materialized, taking in Liam’s kaleidoscope robe and Theo’s soiled pink sweater. “Is there a problem?”

“Uh,” said Theo. He shifted, grimacing. Liam hoped paint seeped into his dark jeans. “Not really. This kid flew through the door and banged into me.”

“I’m not a kid,” Liam seethed childishly, totally negating his statement. _Don’t get angry._

“Soak your sweater in liquid detergent and ammonia for thirty minutes before you wash it, Mr. Raeken or the stain won’t come out.” She turned toward Liam. “Still comfortable modeling for my seniors today, Mr. Dunbar?”

“Model?” Theo yelped, seemingly taking in Liam’s state of undress for the first time. 

“Do you two know each other?” The professor observed Theo’s face.

“No,” Liam said. At the same time, Theo opened his big mouth and replied, “Yes.”

Liam raised a thick eyebrow. “Uh, we kind of do,” he corrected, as Theo scrambled to say, “No.”

Liam released the death grip on his soiled robe and threw his hands in the air.

“Which is it?” Ms. Flemming cried.

“He doesn’t...” Theo took a deep breath, gesturing between them with his half-empty paint box. “We don’t know each other.” She continued to stare at him, eyes jumping around Theo’s face, searching for something. “Don’t worry, Ms. Flemming.” Theo dropped his eyes respectfully, demurely. “I’m fine.” What the hell was going on?

The professor looked to Liam for clarification. “I’m ready to get started,” he told her. The sooner the whole ordeal was over, the better.

She blew a breath heavenward, ruffling a few stray brown curls on her forehead. “Fantastic. You know what to do.” 

Liam watched as she walked away, heading toward a small portable speaker perched on the edge of the stage. Once her phone connected to the mini speaker, gentle beats cut through the tension in the room, and everyone’s shoulders lowered from around their ears, including Liam’s. Theo made his way to an empty easel at the back of the room, and Liam climbed the two short stairs until he stood on the platform. 

He tip-toed around several shiny pieces of duct tape plastered willy-nilly to the stage floor, the adhered strips satiny-smooth under his toes when he couldn’t avoid them. Each swath of silver plastic bore dates and initials neatly printed in black Sharpie marker, the studio’s way of making sure models could resume previous poses from class to class. It made Liam curious about the models who’d come before him, dropping trou in front of a crowd of artists (in front of Theo-fucking-Raeken!): TS 11-22-2018, JD 12-13-2018, LT 1-3-2019. 

“We’ll start with a series of one-minute poses for warm-up, then progress to five, then fifteen minutes. We’ll end the class with a thirty-minute pose,” Ms. Flemming addressed the room, placing a stool on the stage for Liam to use as a prop. “Normally, our classes are quite boring.” She smirked at Liam. “Let’s see what works of art a little drama produces.” 

She nodded; Liam’s cue. Butterflies always took up residence in his chest cavity for this part—the disrobing. Tonight, knowing someone who hated him was out in the crowd about to paint Liam’s naked ass made the butterflies batter themselves against his ribcage, even with Ms. Flemming’s humor trying to lighten the mood.

“You want drama?” Liam asked the room at large, grabbing ahold of the loosely tied knot at his stomach. “Grandma, it’s me!” he cried in his best smokes-three-packs-a-day voice. “Anastasia!” And he threw his robe to the floor.

Laughter sizzled through the room and out of Liam’s throat, precisely the electroshock he needed to dispel the fluttering around his heart. “Are you even old enough to understand that reference?” someone to his left cried.

“I’m twenty-one,” Liam replied, propping his right foot on the barstool rung and digging his left hand into his hip for the first position. “And it’s a meme.”

The one-minute poses went fast, as they always did. By the five-minute ones, Liam’s nerves had vanished; there was nothing to be scared of, not even Theo Raeken, who barely glanced at Liam and kept drawing without the slightest hint of a sneer or smirk. For his fifteen-minute poses, Ms. Flemming had Liam turn around and face the other side of the room. “We have an athlete in front of us,” she informed the class. “Take note of the musculature, the dips, and curves.” She reminded them of their final project for the course, a series of portraits it wasn’t too early to begin.

“Alright, let’s take a short break,” the professor suddenly said, and a few brushes plunked into trays, though most of the class kept working. Liam bent over to grab his robe off the floor, likely giving at least a few students a show.

“Doing okay, Mr. Dunbar?” Ms. Flemming asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, and this time he meant it. “I’m doing great. May I stretch my legs and take a look at some?” He gestured at the scattered easels.

Apprehension flashed as quick as lightning over her face, and she deliberately didn’t look at Theo, still at his easel. Finally, Ms. Flemming nodded. “Art is meant to be seen.”

Liam stepped off the wooden platform. A few students chatted between each other as he passed, snapping closed their pencil boxes, and in the hallway, candy bars fell from the vending machine with thuds as loud as Liam’s heartbeats.

Theo stiffened when he realized Liam was making a beeline straight for him.

“Theo,” Liam said awkwardly.

“My shirt finally dried, in case you were wondering. You probably think I _deserved_ to ruin it, huh?” Theo answered in a clipped voice.

Liam took a deep breath, refusing to rise to the bait. “Can I, uh, see it? The painting?” He asked over-loud, knowing Ms. Flemming’s eagle eyes scrutinized them.

Theo shrugged. “Whatever.”

Liam slipped behind the easel and didn’t even look at Theo’s painting. Theo had guessed it was an excuse—unmoving, glaring at Liam, expecting a fight.

“Look,” he said, tone hushed, “the paint spill was an honest mistake.” Theo rolled his eyes, but Liam plunged on. “Flemming always puts me in the freshman classes, so I got nervous about modeling for seniors,” Liam admitted. “Anxiety got the best of me, and I threw open the door without knocking or checking if anyone was behind it. I didn’t realize anyone was there. I didn’t realize _you’d_ be here at all.” It made sense, though, when Liam thought about it. He remembered the rage on Theo’s face, the hopelessness in his eyes when he’d told Liam _I’m a survivor._ Survival was an art form, after all. Liam ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead where it had fallen when he leaned in to whisper to Theo. “I had no idea you majored in art, but I respect that this is your space, your thing, and the last person you’d want to see here is me. I filled in for a sick model tonight, but I won’t accept any more jobs in senior classes.”

“It’s fine,” Theo said, stubborn as hell. “Don’t refuse gigs on my account.”

Liam sighed. “No. You asked me to leave you alone, and… I’m sorry, alright?” he said quietly.

Theo froze, looking uncertain for the first time Liam could recall in all their strained meetings this school year. They stood there, staring at each other while students started to make their way back toward their easels. Theo’s eyes were gunmetal blue, framed by bizarrely long lashes. This close, Liam could make out tiny crinkles in the outer corners. Were those laugh lines? Did Theo smile—genuine smiles—at other people??

“I’m sorry,” Liam tried once more. “For tonight, for Beacon Hills and the last seven months. I have some trouble controlling my anger; it’s a work in progress, but I still struggle to keep a lid on it, especially around you, for some reason. I’ve been kind of a dick.”

Theo looked away, refocusing his gaze on the sketchpad propped on his easel. “We’ve both been dicks.” Liam waited, but Theo didn’t elaborate further. Liam’s eyes wandered away from Theo’s face, and he found himself staring at Theo’s painting. It was all light brushes of colored water, smooth lines somehow capturing his body’s exact shape, nude but in no way _naked_. His first poses were all abstract graphite sketches and vivid pastels strokes, but the final position was so crisp and detailed it could have been a photograph.

“Whoa,” he blurted, low and reverent. “This—shit. This is amazing.” Theo captured the deep vee of Liam’s chin, the cut of his cheekbones, the uneven size of his eyes, pulling each quirky feature together to make something… Well, for lack of a better word, beautiful.

Theo’s eyes flew back to Liam’s face. “If you’re looking for a truce, you don’t need to kiss my ass to get it.”

Liam knew fuck all about painting, could barely sketch stick figures, but he could tell, in the way everyone could tell, when he saw legit art. Theo had painted the flesh of Liam’s chest, a winsome rainbow of soft pastels topped by two little freckles under his collarbones, and he checked his skin, surprised to find the exact random pattern painted on himself from their earlier spill. “No, I fucking mean it,” Liam said. “I mean… that’s me. You drew me.” 

“Yes, you’re the model,” Theo said with exaggerated slowness. “This is a life drawing class.”

“Fuck off,” Liam replied, but for the first time, no heat simmered under the words. “It’s impressive. I’m not an art nerd, so I can’t describe it the way you probably could, but the details are just… Wow.”

“Thanks?”

Liam leaned even closer, dropped his voice an octave lower. “That girl next to you? Her painting looks like crap. My chin looks nothing like that.”

Theo looked toward the easel at his right, then turned back to Liam. His eyes jumped all over Liam’s face, ran like water down his robed body to his bare toes and back again. Theo took a step forward until Liam felt his body heat seeping through the stained cotton between them. Theo whispered directly into Liam’s ear: “That’s not your chin. It’s your dick.”

Liam took a shuddery breath and leaned back, licking his suddenly dry lips before he spoke. “My point still stands.”

Theo laughed out loud. _He does laugh_ , Liam thought wildly. _He does smile, and holy shit, what a smile it is_. His brain blanked out at the view; that was the only reason Liam could think of why he said what he said next. He pointed to Theo’s canvas. “You totally _get_ my dick.”

Oh god.

Theo laughed again, either at the words or Liam’s flaming face when his brain caught up to what his mouth just said. Probably both. His grin turned wolfish. “Do I? Lucky me.”

“That’s not what— that came out…”

“Alright, everyone, back to your easels, please,” Ms. Flemming called. Theo and Liam both startled. Liam hadn’t even realized they’d silently stared at each other for a few charged seconds.

“Can I ask you something?” Theo said, just as Liam turned away. His eyes were eager, but his mouth twisted wryly. Liam found himself missing the smile.

“Shoot.”

Theo hesitated, glanced at his painting, then faced Liam head-on. “What’s your name?”

It was like someone turned on a vacuum and sucked all the air out of the room, directly out of Liam’s lungs. “M-my name? You don’t know my name?”

Theo’s cheeks turned a mottled pink. “The professor last semester called you Mr. Dunbar, like Ms. Flemming did at the beginning of class.” He shrugged like the answer didn’t matter to him, but he’d asked.

Shit. “I’m, uh— I’m Liam. My name is Liam.”

“Liam.” And now Liam blushed, his face flushing hotly at the way the two short syllables sounded as Theo said them, the way Liam could see a pink peek of tongue between Theo’s straight white teeth when he pronounced the L.

“Mr. Dunbar, we can’t begin without our model,” the professor called. “You may want to choose a seated pose this time. You’ll be holding it for thirty minutes.”

Liam nodded to Theo and turned away, making his way back to the raised stage and pulling his robe off. He tossed his robe aside, centered the paint-splattered stool, then sat atop it, facing Theo’s side of the room. He placed both of his hands behind his back to steady himself, the position pressing his chest forward. Theo’s eyes were on him, studying this new open pose, and the thought of his red-stained cheeks had Liam spreading his legs the tiniest bit—not obscenely; just enough to grant Theo a _view_. Graphite pencils and soft brushes started to scratch across paper. Theo’s charcoal moved across his canvas in swift, confident strokes.

Ms. Flemming turned on the music again, something slow and sensual. _Something you could fuck to_ . What the hell was Liam thinking? Goosebumps broke out over his arms, making the fine hairs stand at attention. _Nothing else better stand at attention_. He didn’t want to hear Mason’s ‘I told you so.’ The butterflies returned with a vengeance. Couldn’t the whole room hear their wing beats? Liam tilted his chin toward the ceiling and closed his eyes, trying to empty his mind of everything, but especially of Theo-fucking-Raeken.

_Once there was a grown-ass man,_ Liam silently recited. _It was time to figure out exactly how he felt about Theo Raeken, but he was not attracted to him._

Well, maybe he was just a tiny bit attracted to him.

  
  


**February**

By the time Liam made it to the fitness center changing room, most of his teammates were showered and dressed. A few loitered around the row of sinks and mirrors, styling damp hair and exchanging notes on which fraternity parties to attend that evening. No one hung around for long after Saturday morning practice; he’d have already beat it out the door if he hadn’t stayed on the field to talk defensive strategy with Coach and the captain. 

Liam shoved his helmet and gloves into the storage space above his locker, then sagged onto the cold wooden bench in front of his narrow metal cubby. He tapped his muddy cleats against the tile floor before kicking them into the bottom of his locker. “How are we shaping up for the season?” asked his teammate Nolan, pulling his sweatshirt over his wet hair, making it stick up at bizarre angles. Around them, guys hollered good-natured insults back and forth, locks rattled open, and aerosol deodorant cans hissed. Liam could make out the thunk of free-weights hitting the floor in the gym next door, a steady, thumping bass pulling the cacophony together. 

“We’ve got our strongest guys on the restraining lines,” Liam replied, hanging up his arm, chest, and shoulder pads. He could taste Old Spice body wash floating on the thick, humid shower steam every time he opened his mouth. “Offense is solid. I’ve got the cage covered. I think we’re in damn good shape.” 

“That’s what I like to hear,” Nolan said, slapping Liam’s sweaty back. Nolan’s locker clanged shut, dirty-white laces sticking out of the bottom, and he walked toward the exit. “See you at practice Monday.” 

Liam stripped off his practice jersey and shorts, throwing them into his gym bag after pulling out his soap, towel, and shampoo. He didn’t bother glancing around the changing room before pulling out his protective cup and slipping off his jockstrap. He’d played lacrosse since middle school; locker room etiquette was ingrained.

The gang-style showers were an empty expanse of yellowed tile, and the last of his teammates exit as Liam entered, stepping over an orphaned sock, flip-flops slapping against the mildew-darkened grout. He wanted nothing more than to hurry up and get back to his dorm room, catch a midday nap before going out for the night, but he didn’t dare waste the rare luxuries of a deserted bath and near-empty locker. Liam hung his thread-bare towel on a hook and stepped under a waterjet, hissing and scooting to the side until the stream of cold water turned nice and warm, dragging up gouts of heavy steam circling the ceiling above his head. Liam ducked beneath the spray, letting the hot water sluice over his sweaty scalp and down his sore back. His shoulder muscles went lax, his mind idling and eyes drifting closed as he scrubbed beneath his arms and hummed a few notes of whatever tune last blared through his earbuds. 

The nozzle next to him blasted on. 

Liam blinked water droplets out of his eyes, squinting through limp, wet strands of hair. What the fuck? Anyone who’d ever stepped inside a locker room before knew the unwritten rule to take the showerhead furthest from another guy, especially in a communal room without curtains or dividers. 

“You could have picked a diff—” Liam’s mouth snapped shut, then popped open in surprise. Next to him stood Theo Raeken. _Naked_.

Liam’s head jerked back to the off-white tile in front of him so quick and hard he got whiplash, and he battled a ridiculous, juvenile urge to cover his nipples. _Dude has already seen everything, anyway_. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Showering,” Theo replied in his usual tone, confident, cocky, with a hint of malice.

“Yeah, I can see that.” Theo sniggered at Liam’s reply. “Shut up, that’s not…” Liam took a deep breath. “I meant, why are you in the locker room showers on Saturday morning? You don’t play on any sports teams.”

“Weight room’s practically dead on weekend mornings. Everyone is too busy sleeping off their hangovers. I like to take advantage of the quiet.” From the corner of his eye, Liam could make out Theo snapping open his shampoo bottle, squeezing out some pinkish liquid, then placing his bottle in the built-in soap dish

Liam rolled his eyes. “And you picked the showerhead right next to me because?”

Theo was silent for a second, and Liam listened closely, but couldn’t hear any lockers clang or urinals flush. They were alone. Then Theo shrugged and said, “Figured, you showed me yours, the least I can do is show you mine.”

“That’s—That was for class!” Liam sputtered. “This is...what makes you think I’d want to see anything of yours?”

Theo jammed a hand against the valve, raising the water’s temperature, and rolled his neck back, rubbing soap suds onto his head in earnest. “Hey, if you don’t want to see, don’t look.”

_Don't look. Don't look._ Liam looked. God damnit. 

They were nowhere near touching. At least two feet of space separated them, but they were too-close nonetheless. Liam imagined he could feel the phantom heat of Theo’s water-warmed body, a canvas of muscles and creamy, tanned skin. Liam spent too much time admiring street art if that was what jumped to the forefront of his mind. But it was the truth. Theo was gorgeous; water droplets glistened diamond-bright under the over-bright fluorescent lights as they rolled down a smooth, nearly hairless chest and toned abs, gathering in the strip of dark hair below Theo’s belly button. The scar ran vertically down his sternum, faded silver with age, the only thing marring what Liam had to admit was a perfect body. Theo’s broad shoulders and taut back tensed and relaxed as he rubbed his body, and his biceps and triceps, corded with divots and curves, flexed as he worked soap through his water-darkened hair. 

Liam closed his eyes. A devil and an angel sat on each of his shoulders, whispering in his ear. The angel implored him not to rise to Theo’s bait, to turn around, shut off his shower and get dressed. The devil screamed _He’s really hot! Check out his dick!_ The devil won by a landslide. Liam reopened his eyes. 

Two little moles sat on Theo’s right pectoral, flat, and oval. Liam wondered what they’d feel like under his tongue. He traced the swells and dips of muscle down the route of his Theo’s stomach, the crests of his pelvis pressing against his hips and creating angular shadows. A fine layer of dark, springy hair covered the pale skin of obscenely thick thighs, topped off by a firm, round ass. And then…Jesus. Theo’s dick sat atop full, tight balls, slightly chubbed and nestled in closely-cropped wiry pubic hair.

Liam wanted him. It had always been there in the back of his mind, lust buried under a layer of denial, but now the water washed away all Liam’s flimsy excuses. He turned away, didn’t listen to the slick sounds of hands stroking vast plains of skin, focused on the white-noise patter of water hitting porcelain. Liam firmly didn’t think about the dimples in Theo’s lower back, his toned calves, the way Theo watched Liam admire him as he rinsed soap suds off his body, eyes half-lidded and sleepy. 

The water turned off. A starchy towel scratched over supple skin. “I guess we’re even now,” Theo said softly. But there was nothing even about Liam’s world, now tilted on its axis. “See you around, Liam.” 

Liam stood motionless under the spray, cataloging the sounds: the clink of a lock bumping against metal, the thump of a duffle bag hitting the bench, the scratch of a zipper, tinny music issuing from earbuds, and finally, the whoosh of the locker room door. Only then did he reach for the valve, turn the water full-blast to cold, and take himself in hand.

* * *

He wandered around all afternoon, too hyped to go back to his dorm and sleep off the grueling practice and strange, sensuous encounter with Theo. He passed the public works building and ended up at the food co-op. Inside he bought a turkey sandwich with cranberry mayo and an iced tea and sat on the curb outside eating his dinner, watching the traffic. 

The sun started to set, taking the warmth of the day with it, and Liam zipped his sweatshirt. He headed around the back of the co-op, cutting behind the building back toward Fifth Street. Some sixth sense made him turn around as soon as he passed the dumpsters.

On the co-op’s back wall were two bruised and bloody hands, busted knuckles the same color as the sunset to Liam’s west. The hands grasped each other, blunt fingernails cracked and dirty, blue veins standing out in stark relief. _Fight_ was the war cry graffitied over the artwork. But something about the call to violence didn’t sit right with the pale expanse of vulnerable wrist on display, the desperate force of the grasp, evident in every minute detail the painter left behind. Liam couldn’t bring himself to believe the two hands were at odds, despite what the savage command said.

He pondered it some more, savoring the dregs of his iced tea. When he finished, he lifted the lid of the dumpster and tossed in the bottle. There, right on top of some black trash bags, was a can of yellow spray paint. Liam reached in, gingerly picked the can out of the garbage, and shook it. Still some left.

He let the lid drop closed with a clang and stepped up to the graffitied wall. He was no artist, but when he finished, he was satisfied.

Under the frantically clutched hands were now the words, _I will fight with you_. 

  
  


**March**

The fifth shot burned as bad as the first, cheap vodka igniting like lighter fluid in Liam’s esophagus and scorching his stomach. Nolan and Nathan slammed their shot glasses on the bar top next to him, and a loud cheer erupted from behind. His body shook as his teammates' hands landed on his shoulders, excited now as they were when Liam blocked their rivals last shot during the game.

“Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!” Alex chanted. “Another drink!!”

“Hell no,” Liam laughed. “I want to live to play another day.” He’d ingested two beers before the celebratory shots at Froggy’s, and pre-gamed at a teammate’s apartment; Liam knew where to draw the line.

“Nah!” Matt yelled over the music, signaling the bartender who headed to their end of the counter with a fresh bottle of Tito’s. “You’re the MVP. Keep this up, and you’ll be captain next year.”

“Let’s drink for the next team captain!” Garrett screamed, and another round of cheers broke out around the bar. 

Liam escaped fifteen minutes later, whispering to Aaron—the freshman who couldn’t get served—that he’d catch an Uber home. He’d successfully avoided the last two rounds, which consisted of Froggy’s famously potent blowjob shots, but the rowdier the team got, the less likely Liam would leave with all his faculties. 

Several street lamps were blown outside the dive bar, and the fluorescent Sierra Nevada sign glowing in the front window cast a weak light. Liam pulled out his phone, intending to request a ride, but tipsy fingers tapped his photo app instead, displaying a stream of the street art he’d collected over his months at UC Davis. Above him, the moon played peek-a-boo with the clouds. It was still early, his drunken brain decided; why not skip the Uber and take a gallery walk instead? If Liam had his bearings correct, the first art he’d seen—the black heart—was a few blocks south. He headed around the back of the brick strip mall housing the bar, bypassing a rust-pitted metal sign proclaiming, _No Loitering, Loading Area_.

Side-stepping a water-stained crate of moldy smelling cardboard from the pizza place next door, and a sea of half-smoked cigarette butts behind the barbershop, Liam found himself standing next to a few broken wooden pallets behind a wireless phone store. Far in the distance, a siren wailed, almost obscuring a tiny _ping_ and a faint shushing noise, like paper litter dragged in the wind, or a mother hushing her child. Liam didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t want trouble, so he tiptoed past the pallets, heading toward the back of the mattress store, where he could see the periodic wash of headlights from a side alley. He walked straight into a pile of squishy, wet garbage bags and knocked over a metal trash bin, the lid hitting the ground with a resounding clang. “Shit!”

A head popped out of the pathway between two buildings. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Liam reclaimed his foot from the garbage bags. “Theo?!” 

“Shh!” Theo admonished, coming out of the alleyway like truth coming out of her well. He advanced on Liam. “Why are you out walking around in the middle of the night?”

“Psshh,” Liam said, waving away the question with a floppy hand. “It’s barely past midnight.”

“No, dumbass. It’s two am.”

“Really?” Liam asked. Then he remembered. “We won our first game!”

“Shh,” Theo said again and pulled Liam into the narrow pathway with cracked pavement sprouting spring weeds. “Jesus, you’re loud.”

“I’m celebrating, Theo. Not a single ball got past me today.”

“Oh yeah?” He quipped. “You’re the ball master, huh?”

Liam _giggled_. Oh god. “I don’t know. You tell me. You’ve seen them.” Theo’s eyebrows shot up. “And I’ve seen yours. You are _definitely_ a ball master.” Liam’s eyes dropped to Theo’s crotch, a blur of darkness in the unlit alleyway.

“Are you drunk?” Theo hissed. 

Liam held up his thumb and forefinger, pinching them together. “Only a teeny-tiny bit. Sadly, not enough to forget, I called you a ball master. I will totally remember that tomorrow and want to punch myself in the face.”

Theo laughed like he did in the art studio, like he didn’t mean to, but Liam drew it out of him. “Yeah, Liam. You’re a ball master too.”

“Look at us! We agreed on something. That’s progress. You’re welcome to see my balls again anytime you want.”

“This is the worst flirting I’ve ever been a part of in my life, and that’s saying something.” Theo smiled when he said the words and reached for Liam’s fly. 

“Oh.” Liam had meant he would model again if Theo wanted him to, but thinking back, he could see how Theo misinterpreted the statement. Maybe Liam had misconstrued it on purpose. That seemed like something a ball master would do. “Oh shit.”

Liam’s jeans and boxers were under his ass, under his balls, his half-hard dick in Theo’s fist. Theo gave a few experimental tugs, ran his thumb over the head until Liam was fully hard. “Fuuuucccckk. That feels good.” 

Theo dropped to his knees on the dirty pavement. “This will feel better.”

And Liam was on fucking fire, lighter fluid in his veins again, but this time it was so much better, the shocking heat of lips and tongue spreading out from his cock to his balls, zipping up his spine and making his fingers and toes tingle. Everything was wet, sloppy, loud. He leaned back against the building’s brick wall, palms scraping over the rough, crumbling mortar. Sounds rushed over Liam’s lips. “Uh, uh, uh.” Theo hummed in response to the involuntary noises, sending pleasurable vibrations through the tip of Liam’s dick. 

“I jerked off over you,” Liam rasped, mouth running uncontrollably. “This semester. Last semester. So many times.” Theo hummed again, and Liam choked. “You-uh-the first time was-oh-was the day you came to c-class chewing bubblegum. Your lips, uh, the way they parted, and those little movements of your jaw. God. I wanted your mouth on me.” He’d never admitted that to anyone, always locked those stolen moments of Theo-induced self-pleasure in the most private part of his soul.

Theo wrapped his left hand around what couldn't fit in his mouth, stroking his thumb along the underside, his tongue cresting over the peak again and again. He monitored Liam’s reactions through sinfully long, black eyelashes. Liam felt like a Warhol pinned to the wall; studied, admired, adored. He must look debauched, face flushed, and eyes glinting. It was too much to take in, so Liam looked at the night sky spread above them like a blanket, the stars raining down, trying in vain to dampen the flames. Theo’s mouth was a work of art, and Liam was the canvas.

Liam hiccuped a laugh, tried to smother it with his hand.

“Something funny?” Theo asked. A thin thread of saliva strung from the tip of Liam’s dick to Theo’s mouth. There was an edge to his voice Liam knew well. The roughness wasn’t just from Liam’s cock in his throat.

“You totally get my dick.” Liam couldn’t help it; he laughed again. 

Theo blinked up at him, shocked, then he cackled too, the tension breaking, smothering his face in Liam’s bare hip. Liam felt the smile on Theo’s swollen lips against the thin skin of his hip. Some strange emotion consumed him.

The laughter stopped when Theo took Liam in again, one long, slow suck, taking him down to the root. Theo stole his right hand between Liam’s legs, cupped his balls, shifted his fingers back, and _pressed_.

“Aw fuck I’m gonna—” He came right down Theo’s tight throat and swore he could still feel the smile.

* * *

Liam woke the next morning with a slight headache—which he counted as a win—and his wallet sans credit card. “Damn it,” he swore, throwing on sweatpants. Liam bypassed last night’s dress shirt crumpled at the foot of his bed in lieu of a t-shirt from the hamper. He’d left the card at Froggy’s, too busy to grab it while trying to escape the collective efforts of the lacrosse team to get him utterly shitfaced. Then he’d seen Theo in the alley and...well, his MasterCard had been the last thing on his mind. It looked like Liam was walking the twenty minutes back to the bar.

By the time he made it to Froggy’s, they’d opened for the weekend lunch crowd. The bartender was different than the previous evening, but she excavated some paperwork under the register and unearthed Liam’s card. He paid his open tab—thank Christ the guys hadn’t charged any additional drinks to it—and walked out to the corner.

He could head straight back to campus, grab some food, and maybe a nap, but he poked at the memory of last night like a sore tooth.

“I can reciprocate,” Liam had said after they’d broken a filthy kiss. Liam could taste himself on Theo’s tongue. But Theo has halted Liam’s hands as they grappled with his zipper.

“Next time,” he said. “Go home, Liam. It’s late, and I still have work to do.”

_What work?_ Liam wondered now. Did Theo work overnights? Was he out on the streets selling drugs? Selling his ass? Liam hadn’t asked, too come-drunk, tipsy, and tired to ponder what Theo had meant. 

He passed the water-stained crate of mildewed cardboard, the broken pallets, and the bags of garbage. He stepped into the scene of the crime. 

The hands were an amalgamation of light and dark, curves, and straight lines. They spanned the building from roof to ground, fingers clasped around forearms. The hand reaching out of the dirt was wrapped in thorns, veins black and bulging. The hand reaching down from the sky was wrapped in green vines with blooming buds, spring yellows, pale purples, and light blue. 

One dark thorn had a tiny colorful blooming flower, glistening in the sunshine.

_It can’t be wet_ , Liam thought. There wasn’t time for the artist to create this after Liam and Theo left the alleyway. The sun was already rising when Liam collapsed into his bed.

_Unless he’d_ _been_ _there the whole time._

He couldn’t remember the wall back to his dorm, climbing three flights of stairs, closing his bedroom door. He walked over to his bed, picked the crumpled dress shirt he’d worn the night before off his floor, and smoothed it out on top of his bedsheets. He flipped it over to the back, stared down at the evidence.

Yellow. Purple. Blue.

  
  


**April**

Theo had to be avoiding him. It was the only explanation for why he’d suddenly disappeared when previously Liam couldn’t throw a stone on campus without hitting him. Three weeks after their back-alley encounter, Liam had switched up his eating schedule to try and catch Theo in the dining hall to no avail; had stationed himself outside the art building for hours; had taken to wandering the streets of Davis after dark, hoping to find Theo with a can of spray paint in his fist, so he’d know once and for all if his theory was correct.

There was more to it than that, though. Liam wanted desperately to know the identity of the mysterious artist who had captured his attention, but he wanted to know who _Theo_ really was too. Mason’s words kept playing on an endless loop in Liam’s head. _I’m not saying the rumors aren’t legit, but until you ask Theo, they’re just that—rumors_. Next month Theo would graduate. The clock was ticking on Liam’s chances to ask him _anything_. Why had he wasted so much time? Why was _talking_ so goddamn complicated?

After an extended Sunday morning breakfast—he stayed there so long the egg station chef brought him three separate omelets—didn’t produce Theo, Liam threw in the towel and headed to Shield’s to get some studying done for finals. He grabbed a to-go cup of coffee from the vending machine on his way out.

A few teammates hung out on the white benches outside the library entrance, soaking in the spring sunshine. They waved Liam over, but he didn’t join them. ‘Gotta cram!” he called. The librarians at the circulation desk were too busy scanning books to notice Liam blowing past, taking the stairs to the second level two at a time while he gripped the polished railing. His one last shred of hope was to find Theo seated in Liam’s favorite chair by the charging port, but he tasted defeat again; the chair was empty. 

Liam lasted all of fifteen minutes before giving up on studying. Two seats down, a pretty girl’s pencil tapping sounded like the stomping of elephants, and someone’s allergies were acting up around the corner; if he heard another sniffle or sneeze, he’d scream. He shoved his laptop into his backpack and took the long way around the second floor, past the instruction room and the reference collection, filling his water bottle at the hydration station before cutting through the stacks that marched across the floor in tall rows, fingers trailing over the spines of books as he heading toward the main staircase. Along the far wall were window alcoves, wide enough to fit a student who didn’t mind scrunching up their legs. Liam could see overtop the uneven horizon of books on the shelves, and a few window seats were occupied, but the inhabitants weren’t doing much studying. They mostly watched the happenings out in the courtyard. 

One such person had a sketchbook opened on his knees, the page bare. Wet hair curled around his ear and at his nape, a bit too long to be tidy. Warm sunshine spilled through the window he gazed out of, painting sunflower-yellow streaks over his three-day stubble cheeks. Liam backed up quickly, heart in his throat, knocking into the shelf behind him. _Theo_. He’d finally found Theo.

_Fuck. Shit. Fuck._ Liam imagined this moment ad nauseam over the past few weeks. Now that it was finally here, all his carefully crafted monologues and witty conversation starters flew right out of his head. He stepped forward again, crouching by a lower shelf so he could scope out whether they’d have some semblance of privacy if Liam approached him now. A girl at the far end of the row eyed Liam’s erratic behavior with a smirk, but she was up on tip-toe peering over the shelves too. _Great. I’ve become a stacks stalker_. This was not how he thought college was going to go. 

He backtracked a few shelves, came around to the window aisle, and walked up behind Theo. Liam was just going to ask him, straightforwardly, if he was the creator of Liam’s favorite artworks. Then he’d invite Theo to lunch—though his stomach was still sickeningly full of omelets—and they’d talk, get to know each other. Liam rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck. He could do this. He was going to ask.

Liam plopped his half-full disposable coffee cup on the ledge next to Theo’s feet, and Theo startled, sitting up straight from his slouch and turning to Liam with wide-open eyes. There was something different about his face, but Liam didn’t realize what it was until the mask Theo always wore slid neatly back into place when he recognized who’d approached him.

“There’s some luke-warm coffee left if you want it,” Liam said, pointing to the cup laid at Theo’s feet like a sacrifice. “I only took a few swallows.” _Fuck. Shit. Fuck._ So much for his game plan. 

Theo looked at the cup, then back at Liam, body preternaturally still. “If security catches you with that, they’ll kick you out. A blue vest passed by about fifteen minutes ago. They’re due for another round soon.”

Liam shrugged. “Eh. Fuck the police.”

The corners of Theo’s mouth twitched. “And they say I’m trouble…”

“Yeah,” Liam started, shifting from foot to foot, “about that…I heard some shit, and I was quick to believe it. I _wanted_ to believe it because you’d pissed me off so bad that day in class, but I shouldn’t have—”

“Liam, stop.” Theo unfolded from the alcove, stretching his legs toward the floor and snapping his sketchbook closed. He held the book to his chest like armor. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about me. A lot of the rumors are untrue, but...” He focused on a point over Liam’s left shoulder and lowered his voice. “Some of them are. I’m not a great person, and it’s pretty obvious you are.”

Liam scoffed. “What on Earth gave you _that_ idea? I’ve been a giant dick to you all year.” 

Theo waved at Liam’s lacrosse sweatshirt. “You’re on the team, so you must have decent grades. You have a campus job, and Flemming doesn’t hire flakes. You’re smart and love history. You’ve got _decent_ friends, I’ve seen you around campus with them. You shouldn’t be friends with someone like me. I shouldn’t have… done what I did in the alleyway that night. You deserve better.”

Liam’s heart cracked down the middle. “Don’t put me up on some pedestal. I’m far from perfect. When I’m scared, I get angry.” Even now, after years of therapy, the words needed to be ripped from his chest, shoved out of his throat. “I lash out. I hurt people. I hurt _you_. It’s hard to control my anger sometimes.”

A muscle in Theo’s jaw ticked. He pressed himself further into the window seat, further from Liam. “You’re scared of me.” 

“No.” Liam shook his head, trampling the urge to touch Theo, to sew a thread of connection between them. “I was scared of the way you made me feel.” He paused, pulling apart the tapestry of Theo’s carefully-worn mask with his eyes. “And if this is honesty hour, I should probably tell you I’m interested in being more than friends, and fully capable of deciding what and who I deserve.”

Theo shook his head. “You don’t _know_ me. If you did, you’d change your mind.”

Liam thought of the artwork scattered about town, all the glimpses into the artist's fractured soul, spilling his secrets like love letters. “I might know you better than you think. But even if I don’t, I want the chance. Let’s get out of here; go somewhere we can talk. Get to know each other.”

Theo reached down, grabbed the backpack at his feet, stuffed the sketch pad inside, and slid the straps over his shoulders. “You’re crazy, kid.” The nickname didn’t sting this time, and Theo didn’t walk away. Liam took that as a good sign. “Come on. I have a place we can go.”

  
  


* * *

On their way to Theo’s off-campus apartment, Liam ducked into a convenience store for a coffee refill. “Want me to get you some?” He offered as the bell over top of the entrance jingled. 

Theo grimaced. “I’ll pass. I’d rather not get an ulcer before I’m twenty-five.”

Liam patted his stomach. “Hi, my name is Liam, and I’m a caffeine-oholic.”

“Hi Liam,” Theo deadpanned in return. Liam smiled the entire time he was in the store.

Theo’s studio apartment was, for lack of a better word, a complete shithole. _So he isn’t homeless after all_ , Liam thought, though this wasn’t much of an improvement. Inside an eight-hundred-square-foot room with cracked, water-stained ceilings and spartan, discolored walls was a tiny kitchenette with the smallest stovetop Liam had ever seen. It sat atop the only two cabinets in the space and had two coil burners, and a toaster oven served as the only other means of cooking food. Theo didn’t even own a microwave. A refrigerator not much bigger than a kegerator was separated from the stove by a few feet of counter space, the off-white linoleum peeling at the edges around the sink. A small-scale island with retractable sides served as a table, a single barstool standing next to it.

“Have a seat,” Theo gestured to the stool, coming around to stand on the opposite side of the island. He leaned his forearms against the small slab of butcher block, shoulders curling over his chest, watching Liam drink in all the information he could from his meager surroundings.

In one corner, a big bed monopolized the majority of floor space, it’s sturdy oak headboard easily the most expensive piece of furniture in the whole room. Theo had half-assed making his bed that morning, leaving several fluffy pillows propped against the headboard, and a soft-looking blanket with a colorful tribal pattern rested haphazardly over the bedsheets. Clear plastic bins full of clothes peaked out from under a metal bed frame on risers. 

The opposite wall had a closet-sized door Liam assumed was the bathroom, and a large Palladian window far too fancy for the small, simple space. Theo had drawn gauzy white curtains to let in the afternoon sunshine. A huge paint-stained drop cloth spread across the dingy hardwood floors in front of the window, and an easel stood with a blank canvas. The apartment did have high ceilings and good light, lessening the feeling of claustrophobia. 

Liam took a swig of coffee and slid it across the island top into Theo’s hand. Theo sniffed it first before taking a sip, and Liam’s dog joke flew from his mind as he watched Theo’s throat work as he swallowed, thought about how the rim was wet from Liam’s mouth, right where Theo placed his own lips. He handed it back across the table, his fingers lightly brushing Liam’s on the handoff. “This tastes like piss,” he told Liam, grimacing. 

“Now that’s a rumor I hadn’t heard about you.” Liam pressed his tingling digits into the warm cup.

Theo stared at him. “Thank god for small favors, I guess,” he said, huffing an incredulous laugh.

“Jail time?” Liam asked. Might as well rip the bandaid off quickly.

Theo sobered. “True, but I was a minor, so they expunged my record .”

“Obviously, people are wrong about the homeless one.” Liam swung his coffee cup in a wide, encompassing arc across Theo’s living space.

“Not entirely, but it’s dated. I lived in my truck the first semester of freshman year.” Liam slid the drink back to Theo, who took another sip. “Actually, it was Flemming who got me set up with this place after… after Scott got kicked out of UC Davis.”

“Scott? Is that the kid you almost killed? Who was he?”

“Scott was the nicest guy, got along with everyone: sporty, popular, came here on a scholarship. Everyone loved him…” Theo took another swig, like liquid courage filled Liam’s cup. “I was insanely jealous. From the outside, it looked like Scott had it so easy. People flocked to him; he had tons of friends who constantly wanted to help him. He was nice to me, welcoming because that’s how he was with everyone. He didn’t know better than to trust certain people, or he was incapable of believing the worst in someone. Most people would call that a virtue; I called it a weakness I could exploit.”

“One night at a party, I offered to grab him another drink, and I spiked it with extra booze. I kept doing it all night; he thought he’d only had a couple of drinks, but he’d had triple the alcohol amount. He passed out in his dorm room and started vomiting in his sleep. His roommate called 911, and they pumped Scott’s stomach at the hospital and put him on oxygen.” Theo ran a hand through his now-dry hair, pushing it out of his eyes where it had fallen like a curtain. “I told you, Liam, I’m not a great person. I’d like to say if I could go back and change what I’d done, I would, but I was so bitter, and I felt so fucking…” Theo’s eyes darted along the walls, the ceiling like he’d find the right word written in the cracks.

“Inadequate?” Liam supplied. 

They locked eyes for a few heated, silent seconds. “The cops got involved because Scott was underage, and eventually it came out that I’d been the one refilling Scott’s drinks. Initially, the police thought I’d drugged him, but his tox screen came back clean.” Theo shot Liam a small, sad smile that didn’t reach his melancholy eyes. “They contacted the school to find out where I lived, and Professor Flemming got the call. She came to the police station to pick me up when they realized they couldn’t hold me.”

“So, she found you this place to live?” Liam asked, listening to the tap of Theo’s sneaker as his leg rapidly bounced. 

“Not at first. She drove me back to my truck, didn’t say anything until I reached for the door handle. Then she asked if I’d done it, and I told her no because I’d been lying so long I barely remembered how to tell the truth. She let me sleep, but was back at the truck the next morning, tapping on my window with a bag of breakfast. She asked me every day for two months if I’d done it.”

Liam looked around the apartment again, noticed a dented metal coffee canister on the counter with one wooden spoon, and several paintbrushes stuffed inside, a magnet on the miniature fridge of a howling wolf and a black art portfolio case leaning against the wall. “The truth bought you a roof over your head,” Liam supplied. Liam knew facing hard truths about oneself wasn’t easy, and admitting them to others was downright impossible sometimes. His own truth had earned him the support of his mother and step-father, his friends. He’d been lucky. Where might he have ended up if he hadn’t had their love? 

“It bought me a chance. It bought me someone willing to believe I could change.” Ms. Flemmings watchful eyes, her pursed lips, her sudden wariness of Liam when before there had been none, they all made sense now. He’d recognized her maternal instinct but hadn’t identified its focus.

“Have you? Changed?”

Theo stared at the island top, traced his fingers along the grains of the wood. “Scott got kicked off campus, lost his scholarship for drinking underage. He quit UC Davis and went back home to community college for a few semesters. But he visited once last year, and he came to find me in the art studio. It was clear he would never forget what I’d done, and forgiveness is too magnanimous a word for what went down, but, well… Let’s just say he doesn’t hate me anymore.”

Theo glanced back up at Liam, eyed dull and shoulders square, but there was no force behind them. “ _He’s_ the kind of person a guy like you should be associating with. You have that same pure-hearted puppy-dog eagerness about you that he does. I noticed it right away when we had class together.” Theo reached out, drank the last sip of their shared coffee.

“That’s why you were baiting me in Art and Architecture. Because I reminded you of Scott.”

“You reminded me of everything I wanted, and couldn’t have. Old habits die hard.” Despite it being early afternoon, bags formed under Theo’s eyes, and his shoulders started slumping. He fidgeted from foot to foot. 

“Do you want the chair?” Liam offered.

“I want a nap,” Theo laughed flatly. 

Liam glanced at the bed in the corner of the room. “Then, let’s nap.”

They abandoned the empty coffee cup on the table. Shoes slid off their feet, they stripped their shirts and jeans and crawled into bed in their boxers. They rolled on their sides, facing each other. 

“For what it’s worth,” Liam said, “there’s something my new therapist said to me this year, and it kinda rocked my world. We talked about making decisions, making choices, and how sometimes we make the wrong ones. It could be as simple as passing up an opportunity, or as horrible as hurting someone. It’s easy to forget sometimes, but whatever we did, that’s _not_ what defines us. When the consequences of our actions or choices or decisions come knocking, and they always do sooner or later, the way we handle them is the true measure of who we are.”

He threaded a hand through Theo’s. “The boy who took a swing at someone in middle school and accidentally broke a girl’s nose? That’s not me. I’m the guy who goes to therapy to work through his issues, who’s there for his friends, who apologies when he’s a dick, even if it takes him a while to realize it. You don’t have to be the guy who almost killed Scott McCall. You can be the guy who gets up every day and looks at all the horror of the world, of the past, and chooses to create something beautiful, something worth fighting for.”

He squeezed Theo’s hand. Theo squeezed back.

“One more question before sleep?” Liam left it open for Theo to say no.

“Shoot.” _Fire at will._

“This,” Liam said, tapping his index finger against the narrow strip of scar tissue running down Theo’s sternum, about twelve inches long. “I’ve heard—” He ticked off his fingers “—prison knife fight, retaliation from a drug dealer you screwed over, a jealous husband stabbed you when he found you in bed with his wife, and you’re secretly a werewolf, and a hunter tried to gut you. Any of them close?” Liam hoped it wasn’t a hot philandering wife, and he didn’t want to examine what that said about _him_ too closely.

“Heart transplant,” Theo said sleepily.

That was the last thing Liam expected to hear. “Heart transplant? When?”

“When I was nine. It was…” He paused, closed his eyes. “It _is_ my sister’s heart. Tara. I have Tara’s heart. I believed them when they told me she’d want me to have it. I just don’t think they believed it themselves.”

Liam reached out, ran his fingers feather-lite along Theo’s arm. He didn’t ask who _they_ were. “You don’t have to tell me anymore if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll tell you everything, someday, if you want to stick around to hear it.”

“I do.”

The words had their desired effect. The pinched lines around Theo’s mouth and eyes smoothed, shoulders melted into the mattress, breath exhaled, the signs of relaxation rippling out like a splash in a pond. Theo shook his head, rubbing it against his pillow, keeping his eyes closed. “Crazy,” he repeated, his smile as delicate as moth wings.

“Naw. I’m trouble, remember?” 

“Yeah,” Theo laughed. “You’re trouble, alright. Trouble with blue eyes and a capital T.”

“Worth it?” Liam whispered.

Theo answered with a kiss.

* * *

They came awake in degrees, wrapped around each other. It was nothing to shed the last layer of clothing between them, to explore each other with mouths and fingers. “I haven't done this in a very long time,” Liam admitted, gesturing back and forth between their bare chests. “My last relationship was my high school girlfriend, and it kinda broke me. _This_ I’ve done.” He gestured between their hard, leaking cocks. “Not a lot, but enough. So if you want to go slow, I understand.”

Theo watched him. “If this is honesty hour,” he said, throwing Liam’s earlier words back at him, “going slow is the last thing I want.”

Liam opened Theo on two slick fingers, worked him until Theo was flat on his belly, hips undulating, trying to relieve the mounting pressure by rubbing his cock against the mattress and pressing back on Liam’s hand in turn. Then Liam was over him, in him, moving with him, losing his mind at the tight, hot grip of Theo’s body. He laid himself all along Theo’s sweaty back, slid his hands up muscular arms, and threaded their fingers together. Theo craned his neck, mouth seeking Liam’s, breathing hurt little noises of pleasure against his lips. “Come on,” Liam urged, hips swiveling. “Come for me.” And Theo did. The convulsing heat sent Liam over the edge, had him filling the condom with a loud groan. 

Breathing slowed, sweat cooled, stomachs rumbled. “I’m starving,” Theo moaned, rolling out of bed. “Let’s wash up and grab some food. I’d invite you to join me under the spray, but my shower is a danger zone for one full-grown man. We’d probably kill each other if we tried to get in there together.” He leaned over, hooked a paint-stained hand around Liam’s ruddy cheek, and kissed him, hard. “I’ll be right back, then you can get in.”

After the bathroom door closed, Liam laid on his back, sheets twisted around his hips, staring at the ceiling. The water turned on, and Theo started to sing off-key. Liam let his eyes drift closed, listening to the water pound against Theo’s smooth skin, remembering how he looked under the spray in the locker room, how affected Liam had been. The sight had driven him to walk the streets of Davis, trying to avoid going back to his dorm to jerk off uncontrollably. That was the night he’d found— 

Liam sat up. He’d forgotten the most important question of all.

Liam stood, knees a little wobbly, and walked toward the bathroom door, pausing when he saw the art portfolio leaning against the wall. He pivoted, stepped over to it, and sat down, eyeing it critically. Anything could be inside. He toyed with the string clasp, knowing he _should_ ask permission, also knowing he wouldn’t.

The first sheaf of paper was a charcoal drawing of a pair of eyes, irises colored a deep shade of blue with oil pastels. They were Liam’s eyes. He’d seen them staring back at him in the mirror almost every day for twenty-one years. Liam was on the second sheet, too; a scene of him laughing, the quads abstract landscape sketched around him. He was naked, head thrown back and neck on display, soft cock laying placid against his thigh in the third. A sunset streamed across his collarbones, storm clouds gathered in the valley of his hips. Liam sitting in the cafeteria, a mug of coffee in his hands. Liam, looking over his shoulder with a grumpy scowl. Liam, in full lacrosse uniform, defending the goal. Liam’s lips wet, red and well-kissed. Liam smiling, carefree, mouth full of teeth. 

He spread all the pictures out around him in a circle on the floor. There were over a dozen. Theo found him standing naked in the center of them, turning around and around, studying how Theo perceived him.

A gray towel that may have once been white hung low on Theo’s hips. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back against the kitchen island. “Scared?”

It was a reasonable query. Liam did stupid things when he was scared. “No.”

“Do you want to ask any questions?”

Liam smiled at him, a little wet around the eyes. He may not have found the concrete proof he’d wanted, but that was okay. “I have all the answers I need.”

  
  


**May**

If Liam thought 8 AM classes were a thing of the past, he’d been mistaken. 

He ducked through the door of Peet’s to grab a large Americano, daydreaming about Cafe Luna and all the specialty drinks he was going to make Theo try. In the wee hours of the morning, his favorite street artist had slipped back into bed and whispered into his ear, “I’ve made you something.” Today Liam had plenty of time—and more knowledge of the city streets—to afford to take the scenic route back to campus. 

His feet found their former path like ducks to water, and he headed down the old alleyway. He visited the decaying heart inside the cracked ribs, the broken wrist holding up the world, the gun challenging him to speak his truth when his heart told him the time was right. He passed the call to arms to which he’d contributed. He moved past the cyberpunk mask—his least favorite—and the healing hands.

He was almost to the door of his lecture hall when he found it. This one was smaller, more subdued than the larger pieces but powerful nonetheless, using the imperfections of its cracked plaster canvas for its own gain. Cupped hands held out an offering to the viewer; the word _Trouble,_ the O depicted as a heart, half black, and half red. 

Where before Liam would have wondered if the heart was dying, black overtaking the red, today, he heard the artist’s message loud and clear. He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture for his personal gallery.

Being loved by an artist was interesting: as unconventional and chaotic as a Dadaist painting, surreal, like a Picasso, as vivid as a Van Gogh. Being someone’s raw material was beautiful and ugly in turn, core shaking, maddening and wonderful, all the things life was supposed to be if you let yourself live it.

Loving an artist could be trouble, but trouble had always found Liam wherever he went. This time he would let himself be caught.

**Author's Note:**

> I am new to the Thiam fandom and this is my first fic for the pairing, so please be kind. Thank you so much for reading! [I'm Jamie :-)](https://jmeelee.tumblr.com/)


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